The idea that complaining, and people who complain a lot, can be bothersome probably isn't new to anyone. One of my best friends in town is a die hard anti-complainer. I appreciate his attitude, although if you ask him about it he will just tell you that complaining is a nuisance and that he has no patience for listening to it.
On the How Does this Work page I make a few remarks about complaining, and here I'd like to expand on the idea. Here is what Dr. Abraham Low says about the complaint hobby:
"Why did Mona feel the urge to rant about her experience for hours and tell her story "to everybody who would listen?" A story endlessly repeated becomes stale and hackneyed and monotonous. The listener is bound to respond with weariness, boredom and disgust. If Mona's objective was to convince her listeners, to gain their consent and endorsement a concise recital of the episode would have served the purpose far more effectively than the tiresome rehashing of the story which the countless rehearsals were certain to deprive of its freshness and plausibility. Let me state briefly that this ceaseless recounting of experiences is at the root of what may be called the "complaint hobby." My patients are generally addicted to this hobby, and Mona, in her pre-Recovery days, was one of its devotees."
In the same chapter Low makes a connection between complaining and believing you are in the right, he says:
"All of a sudden he is aroused to a fit of anger. He fumes and raves; he is indignant and fairly panting for a fight. What else can that be but strength, vigor and vitality? And that insult that was hurled at him by "that rascal" was clearly and undoubtedly an injustice, an unprovoked attack. That he is right and the other fellow wrong cannot possibly be questioned. In a "clearcut case" of this kind, who but a fool or knave could challenge his premises and conclusions? The temperamental spell re-establishes as with magic his intellectual claim to validity and his romantic claim to vitality. No wonder he is eager to rehash and rehearse and repeat the story to "everybody who would listen." He has found a convincing story and interested listeners, and he is going to make the utmost of the opportunity."
Some of our attendees ask reasonable questions about the Recovery language and why we use particular turns of phrase. The general idea is to use terms that are neutral and don't reduce individuals to a type of person. We don't say that Mona is a 'depressed complainer', but rather we say she is a 'nervous person' who has the 'complaining habit'. Being a nervous person is something that we can't easily change and that we are willing to accept. We have accepted that we struggle with certain situations and learning how to deal with them is why we attend Recovery meetings. However, the complaining habit is something that we can change especially if we understand it.
One of our key tools in Recovery is spotting, and while some temperamental behavior can be tough to spot, I've usually found that complaining is easy to recognize in myself. I know when I'm just wasting time belly-aching about some guy at work that I don't like that much. This is a pass time with my co-workers who all agree that so-and-so is a big problem because they don't work very hard, and somebody-or-other in that other office is a huge pain, and why does the director get paid so much and make such bad decisions, and on and on. Its an old story.
This sort of day-to-day griping about petty annoyances is just low level noise in our lives that many of us simply accept as normal. Dr. Low points out that this habit can become much more serious, and that nervous individuals can become addicted to rehashing their problems over and over again with anyone who will listen. It is important to stop for a second and think about the impact of this more serious behavior. There comes a point where you are no longer just passing some idle time at the coffee machine with minor complaints and gossip, which while not productive, is at least not too damaging. There is a point where your complaints become so intense and repetitive that no one really wants to listen any more and this starts to eat away your sense of self worth.
Where previously your complaining habit gave you a sense of being right, and perhaps you even found some people who agreed with you, it can take on a poisonous effect where it fills up your mind with destructive thoughts. You may feel the need to repeat the behavior because it gives you a quick little kick of vitality, and that quick fix becomes like any other addiction, something that alienates those around you, and keeps you locked in a dark, miserable, and unhappy place.
I think that the ideas in Dr. Abraham Low's books are somewhat universal and have been formulated in various ways by many other individuals. Eckhart Tolle is an author and speaker who draws from a variety of sources, including classical philosophy, religion, Zen meditation as well as his own experience. I think his advice is extremely practical and nuanced as well as being easy to understand.
He has written a number of books, you can also find excerpts of his talks on YouTube. He has a lot of interesting things to say about complaining in this YouTube video:
Eckhart Tolle gives a great example about being served cold soup in a restaurant which is filled with much humor as he pretends to be the unsatisfied customer. In his talk he gives a window into the unhappy customer's thoughts and reports the internal dialogue that I think we can all easily relate to:
"That shouldn't be happening, the soup is cold it should be hot."
"I'm paying all this money, and what am I getting here? Cold soup!"
"They should... I'm going to talk to someone about it."
Something in you loves going on about it, and if you can find someone to talk to and agree with you about it you can energize each other mutually.
"Did you taste that soup too? Wasn't it dreadful?"
"Oh yah, absolutely dreadful."
A very different thing is taking it to the kitchen and saying "The soup is cold, do you mind heating it up again please? ... No problem." you're not even complaining you are just stating a fact.
Compare this with you going to the kitchen and saying "How dare you serve me this cold soup?!" When you do this you are in a state of resistance to what is. What is - is the cold soup. You can substitute anything in your life for this. There are far worse things than cold soup.
You are in a state of resistance to the is-ness of this moment which is the cold soup. There is the dysfunctional, non-effective way to deal with it which is to complain either internally or to someone else in the hope to get some feedback "...yes, yes you are right..." which something in you loves.
You can temporarily add the position of rightness, and now of course somebody has to be wrong. It's the kitchen staff, and the whole place, and it's the people, all the chefs of the world... somebody has to be wrong, and there is something satisfying about living in denial of the is-ness of the present moment. That is why it is so all-pervasive in humans, there is some payoff for humans; what is the payoff? It is unconscious of course, and making it conscious you are able to step out of it.
In this moment you cannot argue with the is-ness of the cold soup. Of course you have a choice, you can eat the cold soup and say "that tastes okay too...", or you can say "...it doesn't taste good but I'm eating it anyway...", or you can take it to the kitchen and say "...can you please heat this up, it's cold" without falling into the delusion that you are right and someone else is wrong and attempting to strengthen your sense of self by making someone else wrong.
You personalize the whole thing when you say "How dare you serve me this cold soup!? Me!"
To the ego that is very satisfying. The body knows this isn't a good state, if you examine the physiological things that accompany that state you would see that it affects your blood circulation, it affects your heart, it affects your breathing, it affects the entire energy field of your body which is contracted. Now imagine humans living most of their lives in this state of denial, what it does to their bodies is a small thing compared to what it does to their well being.
If you think that it is okay to complain on a regular basis I hope you will stop for a moment and consider that this is something that you can change. It has an impact on you and those around you. There are better ways to interact with your friends and co-workers. Recommending that you stop complaining isn't the same as saying just roll over and endure suffering, there is always something you can do to change your situation. Talking about it might be the first step, but it should never be the only step, take action to change what you don't like about the world and your life, be aware of the things that you can't change and make decisions about whether to accept them or to remove yourself from them.
If you feel stuck and as though you can't stop complaining, that the world is too big, too difficult, and too troublesome you are average. At Recovery meetings we talk about changing habits in small steps, you can come to a meeting and talk to us about strategies for complaining less.
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