The more I learn, the more I look around and listen, the more complaints I seem to hear. It makes me wonder, what if we spent less of our breaths complaining? What if we handled situations that needed our attention instead of complaining about them?
Surely we would lead more successful lives. This is easier said than done, but worth the effort.
We spend our time blaming outside sources for all of our problems. Indeed, there are countless external forces working around us all the time.
Something people need to learn though is that what really matters most to your life is how you react to the things that happen around you. Your reaction has the power to change everything.
The choices you have made as a person has led you up to this point in your life – you are accountable. College students, myself included, constantly complain about the amount of homework they have to do, or that exam next week or how your professor is making you write 6 papers this term.
We do this while ignoring the fact we signed up for this in the pursuit of bettering ourselves. I for one am sure that if I had chosen to spend the amount of time I spent complaining about homework actually doing my homework, I would have saved myself from a lot of stress and ultimately boosted my willpower to finish such things on time and not procrastinate!
A man named Will Bowen was a minister, and in 2006 he delivered a series of talks about prosperity and he noticed that his audience all wanted to become prosperous. He also noticed that although they all desired prosperity, they were simultaneously complaining about all the things they already have.
He handed out purple bracelets to his audience and gave them a challenge: try to go 21 days without voicing a complaint, every time they did, they had to switch the bracelet to the opposite hand and start over at day one.
According to Bowen, people seemed to be much happier after achieving a full three weeks of no complaints. His goal in doing this is to create a complaint-free world. Bowen’s bracelets have made it to iconic individuals including Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Maya Angelou.
What do we achieve by complaining? Nothing. Complaining does not make you a bad person, but it does make you accountable.
Many people propose that if you are going to complain, it must be directly followed with an action to correct that complaint. That forces us to take action and be mindful and if we can correct a problem ourselves we feel more powerful.
If we create habits such as these, our willpower will constantly grow stronger and we will surely succeed beyond our expectations.
Kali Macklin
Staff Writer
