A Complaint Free World

[verhrzn]

Recently, my department had us sit in a seminar about "A Complaint Free World," a program a pastor created in which you train yourself to stop complaining, gossiping, and generally being negative by switching a bracelet from wrist to wrist.

I'm really not sure how to feel about this. Right off the bat, I'm always a little suspicious about work seminars telling us to "look on the bright side!" and "don't complain!", as it has too strong a taste of corporate control, turning everyone into smiling drones who offer no resistance while the rich strip them of affordable health care, lower their wages, and ramp up their unpaid overtime.

 

But I'm also skeptical on a personal level. I can see the benefit of cutting back on negativity, but why the need to go to the absolute opposite? Wouldn't it be healthier, mentally, to have a range... to be neither negative or positive, but a balance, as either extreme can blind you to reality? (As nearly all things in life are a balance of the positive and negative.) It you're always focusing on the bright side, don't you risk ignoring the negative? And is ignoring the negative really a GOOD thing... isn't it akin to sticking your head in the sand? You're being just as unrealistic as negative thinking, just in the opposite way.

 

It also makes me wonder about the social aspect. The seminar pointed out that complaining is a large fixture in basic communication. (Stranger: "Whew, isn't it hot out today?" or Coworker "What a week! Aren't you glad it's Friday?") If complaining and negativity are so bad, then why are they so ingrained in our social interactions?

 

It reminds me of that line from Anna Karenina, about how all happy families are alike, but dysfunctional families are all unhappy in unique ways. Maybe the reason complaining and negativity are so prevalent is because happiness is bland... There has yet to be an interesting book about a man who is content with his life and always looks on the positive side. Problems and negativity are what push plots forward, are what lead to character development. If someone was content/happy to begin with, then they would have no desire or need to change.

 

But hey, we're not characters in plays, we're real people, and perhaps a happy life is more desirable than an "interesting" life. But does a complaint free life really lead to a HAPPY life? Does it really solve your problems, or does it just sweep your problems under the rug?

 

I often see on forums like this people saying that being positive/happy leads to good things. But why are we so certain it isn't the other way around? That having good things happen, for whatever reason, makes you more positive? Or, maybe they've not even connected at all.

 

For example, I was told recently by a coworker that the reason I'm unpopular is because I'm negative. But there is another coworker who, you would think, is FAR more negative than I am... she complains often, and loudly, several times throughout the day, and can callously criticize people behind their back while being friendly to their face. Yet I very, very rarely air my complaints (I complain perhaps once a day to 1 or 2 people) and never gossip. Mostly, I sit at my desk, do my work, and keep to myself.

 

Yet I'm unpopular, and she's not. Obviously there is more going on here than just complaining/negativity. She has it in spades, yet is pretty well-liked.

 

What do you guys think of all this?

[Dooda]

Yea, she's obviously a bitch, the person you're talking about. People usually like overly-funny, boisterous, overly-outgoing people like that, but you'll find that these people very rarely maintain long-term, healthy and meaningful relationships with people. It's their payoff for having a million little friends that really don't matter.

The reason you're unpopular is because you keep to yourself, not because you complain.

 

I agree with most of what you're saying. In the sense of maintaining optimism in a time where everything is but optimistic for but a select few, it seems simply ignorant to remain 'optimistic'. How can we remain optimistic and not complain when there are millions of people facing starvation, or war, or genocide, or disease, and the list goes on?

 

I think, on a personal level, though, negativity needs to be stripped away in order to maintain internal peace within yourself.

[Ross MwcFan]

To never complian seems unhealthy and unatural.

 

Also, I wouldn't take anything that a pastor has to say seriously. The fact that he's a pastor shows he is deluded and not living in the real world.