Ah yes, I smile when I say this title. Those are the words of my former coworker who is Vietnamese. Although he doesn’t like to write, he has a wonderful gift for understanding the idiosyncrasies of the English language. He loves learning new languages such as Spanish and enjoys making up words such as complainto. Hence the “No Complainto” title.
The reason for it is simple. I don’t want to spend anymore valuable time complaining. That’s all most of us do. People we hang with complain as do people we work with, people we watch on TV, and our family members. I have been more than guilty in the complaint department. Yet I notice that most of mine and others’ complaints are recycled diatribe.
That means the person or people who solicit our negative commentary are still doing their “thang”. In all likelihood they are not going to change. So to borrow all the self-help therapists suggestions, what must change is our reactions to the person’s behavior.
Is it going to be easy? Not at all, especially because I am vacationing soon with a group of people who love nothing more than to complain. They definitely see the glass as half empty. Add in their negativity with my often “worst case scenario”/low self esteem and there’s a ready-made cocktail for no complainto failure.
However, I am going to try. Really, earnestly, wholeheartedly am I going to try: to step back, breathe, focus on something else. I will vent in a journal and put forth the effort to not let the negativity consume me. Why follow complaints with more complaints?
So here goes nothing. I will post how successful this experiment is doing. If you have any complaints about “No Complainto” that’s all good. I will simply smile and say thank you.
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