Day 32

Day 32: Real Time
Day One: 21 Day Complaint Free Journey


OK…..let’s get this out of the way right up front. I blew it yesterday.

There are two nagging issues that got me again. The first one was early in the day when I was “sharing” with a peer about a work-related conundrum that truly irritates me.

And then it was the car thing again.

I’ve got to get off these topics.

I visited with my cousin and his lady in St. Augustine yesterday evening. We walked up the street from their apartment to Scarlett’s for beer and wings, one of my favorite things to do in the Oldest City. It was too hot to sit on the porch and watch the tourists watch us eating, but it was a great visit.

I caught them up on my dad’s last week at hospice, so there were only accolades there for that wonderful organization. No complaints.

That led to a philosophical discussion about life and death. The three of us are probably a bit countercultural for NE Florida, so it’s nice to have like-minded folks to talk to once in a while. No complaints there, either.

I thought about my day as I drove back to Jacksonville. When a discussion is shallow and whiny, the complaints come freely. Our conversation gets stuck in the mundane and small. But when we get into truly significant areas of the human experience, the level of discourse becomes more significant, too.

Complaints seem to be easier, don’t they? They don’t require much intellectual exercise.

There is a quote I’ve always loved, although I don’t remember its exact wording right now. Something like, “Little minds talk about people…..while great minds talk about ideas.” There’s more in the middle, but you get the point. Complaining falls in that first “small” category, don’t you think?

When we raise the level of our intellectual effort, our complaining just might lose its home.