When You Complain, You Remain

Posted on June 2, 2009 
Filed Under Effective Thinking, It's all about Happiness

If you aren’t happy with your life or some aspect of it, consider the way you typically think and talk about your problems. How often do your remind yourself and others of the burdens you are carrying? How often do you think about how unhappy you are or how much you hate your life — or some part of it? When you seek answers to life’s “problems,” or guidance to living a happier life, the advice and wisdom you will most often find reminds you that your life will change when your thoughts change: “Don’t worry, be happy;” or “As you think, so it will be done to you.” It may not have occurred to you, but you cannot think of more than one thing at a time; so try asking yourself how you plan on creating a new, happy life by continuing to dwell on the “old, unhappy life” you have been experiencing. How can you complain about problems without remaining in that state of negativity?

The simple answer is: YOU CAN’T! It is impossible to make yourself happy, or create new happy circumstances in your life, by thinking, talking, and otherwise dwelling on the negative aspects of your life — what’s wrong with life, what this person should do differently, how that person offended you, why you are justified in your anger or misery, etc… You may be right about all of your judgments and opinions. Good for you! But would you rather be RIGHT, or HAPPY? I know lots of miserable people who think that their beliefs are the only RIGHT beliefs, and their actions are the RIGHT actions, etc. But I also know lots of HAPPY people who don’t care so much about who’s right and wrong; they’re too busy living happy lives to complain and ruin things for themselves. How many HAPPY “complainers” do you know? That’s right; me neither. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the complaining has something to do with their problems and continued suffering? That’s right; it does. No matter how bad your life is, or how justified you are complaining about your current situation, just remember: When you complain, you remain.

If you are a complainer, you may hear yourself saying something like, “Well, yeah, but he really DID do that thing and gave me a reason to complain. I didn’t start complaining until I had a reason to! My complaints about what he did aren’t what caused him to do it!” Zoom your focus out a little and dial-up your honesty. Is that really all you have to complain about? Is that really the first thing you’ve complained about? Are you saying that you’ve been happy up until this one event and now you have suddenly forgotten how to be happy? If you complain about things, you complain about things. That has very little to do with what is outside of you; complainers have a knack of finding things to complain about. Go back to the old wisdom and logic; and start now focusing your thoughts on happy things and things you wish to experience. It may be some time before your life makes a dramatic turn for the better; but joyfully remind yourself that you are just burning-through all of the negativity you ordered-up in the past — with past complaints that simply haven’t been delivered yet. And be grateful for those “negative events” and for the fact that those things are reminding you how powerfully creative your thoughts are; they are reminders to be diligent in your positivity in order to create a more positive life.

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