You know the conversation. Someone's moaning about the roads, the council, their boss, the weather. It goes round and round. Everyone nods. Nothing changes. Next week, same conversation.
If there's one thing that really winds me up, it's people who complain about something but won't take any responsibility for changing it. Not the odd moan. We all have those. I mean the ones who seem to collect things to complain about and never do a thing to improve their own situation.
Two choices
The way I see it, you've got two choices. Show up or shut up.
Show up means having the courage to play your part. Do something, however small, to make the change you want to see. Write the email. Go to the meeting. Offer to help. Start the thing.
Shut up doesn't mean pretend everything's fine. It means if you've decided not to do anything about it, let it go. Stop spending your energy on it.
Complaining pushes help away
Here's what I've noticed. Complaining doesn't only fail to help. It can stop other people from helping you too. Nobody wants to wade into a problem when all they're going to get back is more moaning.
A lot of what we complain about is stuff we can't control anyway. The weather. What other people think. Something that happened years ago. Every minute spent on those is a minute not spent on the things we can actually move.
I was clearly having a week
I first wrote this in the summer of 2017. Reading it back, I sound a bit fierce. (I was clearly having a week.) But I still believe it. You get to choose what you focus on, and you get to choose how you behave. That's a lot of power, and moaning gives it away.
I've caught myself complaining more than once since writing this. The trick I use now is simple. When I hear myself moaning, I ask what I'm going to do about it. If the answer is nothing, I try to drop it. If it's something, I do it before I'm allowed to moan again. It's the same idea as Do the verb, really.
Think of the thing you've complained about most this month. Decide today which way you're going with it. Either take one small step to change it this week, or let it go for good. Both are better than another lap of the same conversation.
First published July 2017.
