Our pain is a memory, not a recurring trauma

Here’s why I dislike complaining so much.

It’s a pure projection of powerlessness. Total victim mentality. We have externalized personal responsibility by delivering mouthfuls of misery about our own existence.

Which, to be fair, earns us catharsis, attention, validation, support and camaraderie. But all of those are all short term gains. The positive outcomes are limited. There is an illusion of control, since we are at least able to protest, although there’s still no solution to our problem.

This is why complainers rarely, if ever, execute an effective a course of action. They’re too afraid or too stubborn to change their subpar circumstances, so instead they opt to just be pissed off all the time. People finger point, wail and yammer until they feel sated, then move onto the next thing to be angry about, as the cycle of powerlessness regenerates.

Look, I understand life is unfair as shit, but I struggle to have sympathy for people who constantly bemoan their circumstances, yet do nothing to try and change them.

Complaining seems to me like a gross misuse of energy. When I see people bemoaning their fate, all I can think to myself is, wow, now there’s some serviceable fuel, it’s simply in the wrong vehicle moving in the wrong direction.

Let’s do a fun math problem to illustrate this fallacy.

The human body burns two calories per minute, simply by talking. How much energy is that per year? Well, if someone spends twenty minutes a day complaining, multiply those numbers by the days and hours, and you get a grand total of eighteen thousand calories annually.

Now, to put the caloric expenditure into perspective, here are several examples of activities and the approximate average number of calories they burn.

Jogging at a moderate pace for forty minutes burns about four hundred calories. Over the course of a year, a person could reinvest the energy they would have used for complaining, into forty different running sessions.

Same goes for cycling at a moderate clip, swimming laps, and high intensity interval training. That’s a solid workout once a week.

People who struggle to make time for fitness could easily fit those new habits into their schedule.

All they’d have to do is go on a complaint fast. Hell, they could train for a triathlon.

Doesn’t that seem like a smarter and healthier use of our finite and precious energy? Why not skip the middleman, deal directly with our issues, and focus on what needs to be different?

It’s shocking to me how many people haven’t realized that complaining alone, without taking action or seeking solutions, has limited effectiveness. But I suppose the short term social benefit of shaking one’s fists at the heaven is just too damn good.

Complaining is soothing, fun, popular, rewarding, and enables social bonding. What’s not to like?

And look, it’s normal and healthy to feel sad, upset and impatient when life gets hard. This goddamn circus of an existence can overwhelm us more often than not.

Personally, I try not to allow my spirit to be tragically imprisoned. I prefer working on my strategies more than complaining about my obstacles. I’d rather burn calories increasing my skills and deepening personal growth, so the barriers to success are rendered irrelevant.

Such conscious improvements do involve pain, but it’s productive pain that’s well worth the effort.

That’s the difference between wasting our energy complaining, versus investing our energy executing. When the work is done, our pain is a mere memory, not a recurring trauma. Our experience is just something that happen to us, rather than a continuing source of distress. When we use our energy for complaining, we perpetuate a cycle of negativity and frustration. Complaints amplify problems, making them feel larger and more overwhelming than they actually are. We become trapped in a loop of dwelling on our difficulties, without taking constructive action to address them.

On the other hand, if we shift our focus towards executing and taking proactive steps, a transformation occurs. We channel our energy into productive endeavors that move us closer to our goals. By working diligently, we begin to dismantle the barriers in our path, one by one.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you prefer working on your strategies for success more than complaining about your obstacles?