I complain a lot. I would have said I “used to” complain a lot, but it has become abundantly clear through a new project I have undertaken that this is not entirely the truth. Let me explain how this realization came to pass.

The last several months of my life have been full of transition and new developments. Some of these things have been good, and there have definitely been rough spots, but as with any change, it has been stressful. And in speaking to my therapist (yes, I have my own therapist – I firmly believe that it’s important for therapists to process their own stuff in order to be more effective with their clients), I marveled at the stability of my closest friendships throughout these trying times.

“The thing is,” I told her, “if someone came over to my house every day and complained about money and complained about work and complained about this and complained about that, I’m pretty sure I would quickly tire of that person.”

“I think you have,” she said.

Wow, what a revelation! I was tired of hearing myself complain!

Bibliotherapy

Coincidentally, I had just bought a book a few weeks prior at a Borders going-out-of-business sale called A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen. The book urges readers to try to stop complaining entirely for 21 consecutive days. You do this through a basic behavioral therapy technique, in which you wear a purple wristband (initially available through their website for free, though they have since started charging a small amount of money), and every time you complain, you switch it to the other wrist. This action raises your awareness of how much you complain, causes you to attempt to decrease the behavior, and, in effect, causes you to complain less.

When I first started doing this, someone asked me if I would have any clients left if everyone were to stop complaining. This point is a valid one and one that I wondered about myself. While I feel that a large portion of my job is to get people to talk about the positive things in their life in order to strive for more of the same, isn’t one of the lessons of therapy that talking about things is better than bottling them up? Doesn’t complete cessation of complaints simply produce a phony and unhealthy façade?

In short, yes and no.

The book does an excellent job defining what, exactly a complaint is, and even makes the point that processing feelings is different from regurgitating a series of annoying events just to gain sympathy from others. It also talks a lot about the energy behind a negative comment. This was something, as I began the book, that actually concerned me about the theory. I wondered:

If I order chicken, and the waiter brings me fish, am I supposed to just eat the fish? Is saying that I ordered chicken and received the wrong food item a complaint?

According to the book, no. If I say, “Excuse me, but I think there’s been a mistake… I ordered the chicken,” that is not a complaint. On the other hand, if I exasperatedly storm over to the waiter, call him a jerk, and demand that my meal be rectified, or if I gripe to my friend later about the ordeal, that’s a complaint.

While A Complaint Free World has parallels with the Law of Attraction (the theory that if you think about good things, they will magically manifest in your life), a theory whose New Age-iness leaves me feeling ambivalent, I agree with the basic sentiment of both of these theories, which is that it never hurts to try to put more positive energy in the world. Personally, I’d rather live in a happy place with happy, positive people… wouldn’t you?

I haven’t made it through a full day yet without switching my purple bracelet. But I’m working on it, and by being more mindful of it, I’m finding that there are more positive things coming out of my mouth. And for a start, that’s not half bad.

A shortlist of lessons from this book

  1. Complaining is reinforced with sympathy. Children learn at a very young age that if they complain, it will be rewarded. A child who scrapes his knee and complains three hours later that it hurts is given reassuring hugs and pats on the head. This is not to say one shouldn’t sympathize with and give attention to children in pain, but rather it makes the point that the reason we complain so much goes far back into childhood. We learn very early that if we want people to show they care about us, complaining is the way to go about achieving that. Think of it as deep-rooted fishing for compliments.
  2. A direct quotation from the book: “When we complain, often we live in a state of ‘something is wrong’ and this increases stress in our lives.” It’s so true. One of the stressful events in my life was an aversive job that I got into the habit of complaining about on a daily basis. When I left that job for another much more favorable job, I found myself searching for things about it that merited complaining. When complaining is a way of life, you will seek it out even when things are good.
  3. You can say the same words with different intentions, and it ceases to be a complaint. “There was a lot of traffic on the highway” as an explanation for why you’re running behind is not, in itself a complaint. “There was a lot of traffic on the highway” as a conversation starter intended to stir up sympathy for your plight of sitting in an air conditioned car for an hour is.