Day 49

Day 49:Real Time
Day 4: 21 Day Complaint Free Journey



As I’ve moved down the path of attempting to become complaint-free, I have encountered many people who adamantly contend that complaining is a motivating force for the better.

“It’s how things get changed!” they proclaim.

“How else does injustice get fixed?” they ask.

“We NEED to vent,” they say. “It’s healthy.”

I think what these people really mean is, “Let me get on with my complaining! I kind of like it and I want you to like it, too, if only to make me feel better as I whine.”

As I sat in the formal gardens of our local art museum last night and listened to a band play in celebration of our Independence Day, I took myself back to the days of the Revolutionary War. A clandestine meeting is being held in the home of a couple who support the movement to separate from England, a truly revolutionary stance. Those attending the meeting had to “cover” their meeting as if it was a social tea party, friends gathering in the dusk of a spring evening to exchange pleasantries. To do otherwise could lead to charges of treason, a truly frightening prospect for these mothers and fathers, family folks with children and lives to protect.

They persistently recorded their stance and sent it sailing across the Atlantic to their King, complete with an outline of what they wanted and how they wanted to be treated as English citizens living thousands of miles away from their country. The King was the person who could change their plight. He refused to listen.

Then they dumped tea in Boston Harbor. They engaged in non-compliance with the King’s edicts. They laid plans. They discussed strategy. They assigned tasks to further the cause. Then they each went home to quiver in the candlelight, wondering if they had the fortitude to take this perilous path.

Can you picture what would have happened if they had just rehashed and revisited the same complaints against their Mother Country and its leadership? No plans, no resolution, no end in sight. Do you think they continued to spend this valuable, dangerous time together grousing about the King and his cluelessness, merely wringing their collective hands and whining as they drank their tea?

Interesting to contemplate where we all might be today if they had taken that path of moaning and groaning. After all, it probably made them feel better to get it off their chests, right? I wonder how it would have translated for us in the 21st century.

Complaining does have value and is “allowed” IF it is directed to those who can change the situation. And IF it is topic-focused, without turning to personal attacks that are no longer about that topic.

I think about those revolutionaries, those ordinary people who were willing to sacrifice everything for what they thought was right. They were willing to be labeled “traitors,” even though they were merely demanding to be treated properly as British subjects.

They could have lost it all. But they had a plan and they executed it after letting the King know exactly what they had in mind.

Day 4 lies ahead for me. If they were able to handle it, so can I.