A couple weeks ago I spotted a new purple rubber bracelet adorning my 10-year-old daughter's wrist. When I looked at it closer I was surprised to read "A Complaint Free World.org" etched in it's grape jelly-like surface. "Where did that come from?" I asked. Turns out she'd gotten it at Sunday school a few days earlier. (It had taken me awhile to notice it among the circumference of wrist-wear she sports. And unlike myself as a child, who would have come home babbling about every little detail of what happened in class, she can be pretty reticent at times.)
"You're supposed to not complain when you are wearing the bracelet, and if you do complain you have to switch it to the other wrist and start over," she explained.
"What do you mean, 'start over?'"
"You're supposed to try to make it 21 days without complaining, so if you complain you have to start over again from day one."
That sounds hard, I thought. But what next came out of my mouth was, "Can I get one?" If a rubber bracelet could cure me of complaining it was certainly worth a try. She thought she could ask for one the following Sunday, and in the meantime gave me a training bracelet from among her collection, a peach-colored "Be Brilliant" number from the Girl Scouts cookie season a few years ago.
So I started on my personal No Complaining campaign and this is how it went:
The first day or two I did not complain. Well, not much. Not really. Then on the third day I had to switch my bracelet five times. I noticed a pattern: 1) I often complain to myself. 2) The things I complain about are really lame. Here's a sampling:
- The person in front of me in the parking lot was really slow.
- They re-did the bulk bins at Henry's so the lids don't stay up by themselves. I found this very irritating.
- The checker at Vons forgot to credit one of my coupons. (I. love. coupons. Don't get me started.)
- My computer was slow. (C'mon facebook, I don't have all day)
- There was no jelly in the house.
I went to the web site of A Complaint Free World and read their rules, which say that complaints you only think don't count—hey, we're not looking for miracles here. It also said that the average person complains 15-30 times a day and will take 4-10 months to make the 21-day complaint-free goal.
As far as why one would embark on a quest to quit complaining, there are a lot of "Secret"-style attraction theory converts who will try to explain why complaining will stunt your growth, shrivel your bank account and give your dog fleas, but I think it's a bit subtler than that. What I do know is that nobody likes being around a complainer. Including the complainer.
So. Life is hard—suck it up. (This is just a slight paraphrasing of Buddhism's First Noble Truth. Very slight.) Or, as the Complaint Free World folks say, "Your thoughts create your world and your words indicate your thoughts," which is slightly more elegant.
I have my own official purple bracelet now, and my husband is in on the plan too. I am also back to day one. I'll let you know how it goes.
