LIVING IN A CONDITION OF COMPLAINT

LIVING IN A CONDITION OF “COMPLAINT”

All of us encounter times in our lives when the fall of circumstances or the behaviours of some people trigger us to express dissatisfaction or annoyance.

Complaining is a protest against what we see as, wrong, unfair and objectionable, and we may express our displeasure by grumbling, moaning, whining, bleating, carping or in some other way making a contentious fuss. It’s a way that may have got us some results briefly when we were toddlers but, unless our parents and others failed to wean us, we were expected to mark our progress into adulthood by letting it go as a primary means of getting our way.

Some people, though, never make that leap. They continue to cavil and bitch that things are not happening as they expect and become chronically addicted to complaining as a means of seeking relief from their suffering, disappointment, frustration, anger, jealousy etc. etc… The strategy doesn’t work, except sometimes, and complaint addicts become more lonely and less proactive as more and more people who don’t feel obligated to give in to them give them a wide berth instead. A life of complaint becomes increasingly starved of joy, thus giving them even more to complain about.

Such sad souls have created for themselves a chronic Condition of Complaint.

It requires no genius to be a complainer. God knows there’s plenty to complain about. Life frequently throws surprises and curveballs our way, and often does not live up to our expectations. But the numbers of folks who respond to trying times by changing their expectations remains, I fear, in a silent minority.

In the meantime, complaining affects the mood and saps the energy of everyone within earshot.

Is it effective? Is it worth the fuss and debilitation? Name one significant change in the human condition that was transformed solely as a result of someone bitching or whining about it. On the whole of the planet, name one monument or memorial that’s ever been erected to a serial complainer.

Of course there’s not, and the reason is very simple: A complainer complains because he/she is very happy to be unhappy, and is determined to stay that way – until….. The purpose of the unhappy complaint is to get the situation fixed so that he/she can be happy. Boiling it down, a complainer generates unhappiness in order to get happy.

It’s insane!

Then why does it persist?

It may be that as a means of attempting to “right” a less than pleasing situation, complaining is easier than becoming proactive and working toward changes. By complaining we think we can delegate the responsibility for change to someone or some thing other than ourself. Maybe that’s why it’s so popular. And because of its popularity, there’s no shortage of do-gooders and politicians who volunteer I’ll fix it for you! (And then you owe me).

The greatest damage in all of this madness, though is done to the chronic complainer. The practice of complaining rewires and reinforces your brain and neural system for negativity.

Professor of Psychology at Clemson University, South Carolina, Robin Kowalski, identifies 3 different types of addictive complainers ---

1.    THE VENTER – [The world is shit] A disappointed, disillusioned, dissatisfied person who is not interested in hearing alternative perspectives that might release him/her from their suffering. For these people there is an unacknowledged payoff for staying ensconced on the suffering pottie. They get central position in the room. And they don't much care who they vomit onto, as long as it isn't the real object of their resentment.

2.    THE SYMPATHY SEEKER -- [Come and join me in my sinkhole] A lonely, disconnected, self-centred beggar for stroking and agreement. This person truly believes that he/she is getting the rough end of the pineapple, and copping it worse than someone/everyone else. This person craves sympathetic attention as much as Dracula craved blood, and sucks the energy out of anyone who'll stand still long enough. A Sympathy Seeker selfishly pursues his/her fix without considering the present needs of others.

3.    THE CHRONIC COMLAINER -- [Life’s a bitch] Lives in a constant state of Complaint. Some exponents complain about anything and everything; others complain about the same few things over and over. Both extremes embrace one underlying truth – the existence of a single Parent Complaint (a complaint that fathers all others), which the complainer either will not admit to, or which he/she has sublimated into forgotten territory – our Forgettery. We all have one. The objects of this person's complaints are not the real source of his disease, which is why the need to bitch is never satisfied. Chronic complainers rarely put their angst where it really belongs.

There is another kind of complainer – known as an Instrumental Complainer. 

But I have not included them in this list because they tend not to be addictive in 

their complaining. Unlike its wrinkle-nosed conceptual cousins the instrumental 

complainer is more about solving problems rather than flagellating others with 

them. When you confront your romantic partner about overspending on the credit 

card, that could be instrumental complaining. Especially if you focus on the impact 

of the problem, the importance of change, and cooperate to create a plan for change.

One study suggests that these types of complaints make up fewer than 25 % of 

all complaints. And Instrumental Complainers tend to resort to it rarely. They 

could hardly be said to live in a chronic condition of Complaint.

Researchers found that predominantly happy people complain less. They also looked at the evidence that the happy folks in their study were more mindful. They hypothesize that more cheerful folks, when they do complain, are likely to complain more mindfully—more strategically, if you will—and with a specific, transparent goal in mind.

It’s a lot harder, on the other hand, to figure out what would really satisfy chronic complainers. Giving them what they say they want usually doesn’t stop the flow of effluent. That may partly be because they don’t really know themselves or what they really want, and partly because a “complaining” habit has become an irreversible lifestyle.

Biologically, whenever we complain we set up, trigger, embed and reinforce a negative neural network. This particular network began the day when we first raised our voice to protest against a prevailing state of equanimity being perturbed. For most of us this would be the day we were born. When we finally made it through that cataclysmic upheaval we cried, and that got attention. Snap! An unthought thought arose out of the field of thoughts we were born into. If we'd had vocabulary at that time, this thought would have sounded something like “Well, that got me noticed.” We did not think that thought, by the way; it just popped out of the soup of thoughts we all swim in. It came visiting and we jumped onto it and invested something of ourself into it: Any time you feel sufficiently disrupted, grizzle. You’ll get attention – that's how our fledgling mind put it together.

The next time we felt uncomfortable, maybe with a colic pain, a crapped nappy, or just lack of sleep, or that we'd just woken up and no-one seemed to be within sight to notice, we whimpered again to get attention. Soon we realised whimpering worked every time – someone came running. So we stopped waiting to get really upset; bunged on a bit of a grizzle and – hey presto - we got attention. This was our primitive way of snapping our fingers. The un-thought underlying thought now changed slightly to “Complaining works. It gets action from others”. At that point, however, the thought was no longer something we thought. That “complaining works” thought took over and began to “think” us. We ceased to be the thinker and instead became the thought. From cause to effect in one easy step. Because we didn't yet have a more sophisticated, nuanced language, Complaining became the unconsidered communication tool of first choice to get our needs met.

Except in drastic circumstances, in which case we cut straight to a protesting “howl”. That was the first time “crisis” hit. After that, though, complaining wasn't really serious – we were simply acting. Make no mistake about this, though..... At that time, complaining was a matter of survival for our mind because something in us “knew” that we did not have the resources to make it on our own. Mind instinctively knew that we had to get attention from others in order to survive.

Then, one day, we complained and no-one came. Perhaps Dad was at work and Mum was temporarily out of earshot hanging out the laundry. Whatever the circumstances, our whimper didn't get a response. We got a fright. We became more acutely aware of our helplessness. So we automatically poured some more energy (feeling) into the call for attention until we got the desired result. As time went on, though, our carers got used to our cries and became occupied with other things competing with us in importance and urgency for their attention. Our levels of helpless anxiety racked up a notch at a time, but experience had now taught us how to fix that. We poured ever more emotion into our communication, ratcheting whimpers into cries, cries into wails, wails into howls and howls into full-on anger tantrums. (“anger” I define as “complaint with the volume turned up”)

Somewhere in this escalation the complaints stopped being an act and reverted to being “real”. The actor became the victim of his/her own act. We forgot it had been an act and treated the situation as if the need for attention was a full-on real need (crisis), as if the threat to the survival of that threat-belief was a real threat to “my survival”. Going into our teens, our cries for co-operation became demands for compliance and howls of indignant opposition if the attention we got didn't fit a strict model of “how it should be”. We became right little arseholes. We made it up that “central position is necessary for my survival.” I know many people, some of them in important public positions, who still act “as if” they'll die if they're not getting central position.. Some of them go to their graves still terrified for the survival of some belief, opinion or principle with which they I-dentify.

The truth is that, as years went on and we developed skills for looking after ourselves, the threat to our survival actually lessened. But most of us did not notice that. The habit of interpreting discomfort – physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual or otherwise as “a threat to survival” – stuck. 

There’s actually a valid reason for that, arising from the way Mind works and the fact that our life was now being run by our mind. It is a rule of the mind that Mind considers itself to be king of the world, and anything it considers to be a threat to its authority, it regards as a threat to the survival of Itself, and anything It considers itself to be. And that includes all of its concepts, ideas, judgments, beliefs and opinions – and everything it considers to be either “me” or “important to me”. 

And “me” can include anything from personality, beliefs, values, to body parts and image. Any perturbation of the Mind is automatically felt as a threat to the almighty “Me” and “my survival”.

While ever mind is still running the show, we do not mature out of the condition of Complaint along with our years and other abilities. “Me” is held back and even reinforced by surrounding family, friends, “grownups” and institutions who also live in their own conditions of Complaint. You remember the signs – for them even the temporary loss of access to TV or a mobile phone (in the case of children), or “social privileges” (in the case of teenagers), or a car key or contact lens could be a cause for panic stations, and woe betide anyone who didn't immediately jump into the emotional stew in sympathy with the sufferer! You assumed that was normal and adopted it as your normal way to deal with living.

By not changing our habits we continue to play and believe in the role of “helpless victim”, as if it’s really true.

Complaining is a pandemic amongst those who have not given due attention to developing conscious self-awareness. Most people are the unwitting, but willing victims of their own negatively inspired dysfunctional neural networks. And many will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. That’s Mind for you! To some degree we all become victims of our own habits and labels. All unexamined and undisciplined minds follow paths of least resistance, following their previously established networks when reacting to everyday life, even when those old ways are dysfunctional. 

If you want something better in your life, and decide to do it some other way than complaining, you’re going to have to change your mind. And your mind ain’t gonna like that. It will twist and turn, hiss and fart, and do its conniving best to stop you. That’s how your mind is designed. Part of the challenge of “growing up” lies in mastering the art of demoting your mind from the role of master to that of servant.

Change requires your deliberate intention.

And the courage to be different and happy.

In lower levels of consciousness, individuals react more mechanistically to life crisis situations rather than responding awarefully. creatively and appropriately to them. Because most people have not realised that they are now potentially capable of looking after themselves physically, emotionally, spiritually and every other way, they continue to panic and “lose it”, even though the strategy has long ago ceased to bring them the promised peace of mind.

It is a function of our egos to resist changing habits and programmes that once worked, in the belief that “if I keep trying this it will work again one day”. How's that for a symptom of insanity – addictively returning to strategies that no longer work in the vain hope that they will? We keep on knocking at doors of long-deserted houses. As a friend of mine observed on more than one occasion – if someone or something else has to change in order for you to be happy, you're fucked.

Now here's the ultimate joke -- even on the rare occasion that chucking a tantie or complaining to our local member does get some action, we can never experience even mild gratification for long because we know deep inside that we had to manipulate that someone or something to get what we decided we wanted. So we have to keep coming back to complaining in order to seek the serenity and satisfaction that keeps eluding us. It's a no-win dead-end.

With these insights now on board it's important to catch ourselves as we start complaining and give it some “second thoughts”. What is it that you're not happy with? What's prompting you to want to change that? How might you be contributing to the situation you're not happy with? What does having this situation prevent you from keeping, doing or having? What's the payoff for you; what does having this mess allow you to get away with doing, being or having and still feel “right” about it?  Where do you want to go from here – long term? Now, what's a possible effective next step you can take in that direction?

Whatever you decide to do next, do not berate yourself for your past mistakes in any way. This is how we learn and evolve – experience something not working, make some changes until we arrive at something that does. In this way the mistakes of our parents won't get passed down to our descendants. This is the human race evolving.

A NEW DIRECTION

Look for something to be grateful for right now. It doesn't matter what it is, or what size it is. As long as it re-awakens your comatose sense of appreciation and elicits a quiet “thank you”, it will suffice. Begin a habit of looking for things great and small around you every time you think to and finding a tiny feeling of gratitude that it's in your awareness here and now. Don't waste your time looking for objects, people and events that inspire gratitude in you. Don't go looking for reasons to be grateful. “Reasons for” will not produce the sensation of anything. “Reasons for” are just another headfuck, and a way of beating yourself up if gratitude doesn't arise. Just go for the feeling of gratitude itself. Practice just giving space for gratitude to naturally emerge -- to a rose poking through a lattice as you walk by, a woman's perfume as you pass in the mall, to someone who smiled on the bus, to a child's laughter that reminds you how to see delight in the ordinary...... whatever. You had this ability once. It didn't die; you just left it behind in the search for other things you thought were more important at that time. So you made a mistake. So did we all. It's part of the experience of learning by being more fully human. You got it! Be grateful for the lesson and the “got-it”.

Practice noticing little moments in gratitude and just let them happen to you. It creates a neural network for pleasant feelings alongside the old unpleasant one. Let any pleasant feelings happen to you. Don't force this in any way; be patient with yourself. When you catch yourself complaining, to yourself or anyone else, just stop. Take a breath. Stop. Just stop. And breathe. Notice how your breathing became harsh and strained while you were complaining. Now breathe easy. And look for something sweet and savoury to go with the salty and the bitter.

That's how I started to live a happier life.

How to complain well

A rough guide for complaining:

·        Avoid dampening your mood -- complain only rarely, as a tool of last, rather than first resort.

·        Complain only in instances where you believe it will effect real and positive change

·        Consider whether some other strategy will work instead of complaining

·        Limit your exposure to complaining by limiting your exposure to complainers. Walk away.

Look, here's the bottom line. You do have a lot to complain about in your life. I get that. But it’s in the Dead Past, and by complaining about the past, like a cat with a dead bird, you’re stinking up the present.

Answer this – not for me but for yourself – “My justified complaining has boosted my feeling of being right, but has it made me any happier?”

Final question – “Would I rather be justifiably right, or happy?”

Your choice.