(Harrys Stratigakis) Overcome this negative habitual pattern and reverse your life’s outcomes
Related No Standard, No Problem
by Harrys Stratigakis, March 2nd, 2022
This piece is part 2 of the series “A Shift in the Way You Look At Things”
“What’s taking them so long?”
“Why me?”
“It will take so much time, I would rather skip that”
“Again? I’ve already told you many times”
Complaining, fretting, objecting, whining. There are plenty of words to describe that state of mind; the one where we are declaring our disapproval of a situation that procures negative feelings inside us; be it fear, anger, boredom, etc.
In general, by complaining, we usually try to accomplish two things; one to presumably relieve our negative state, and two to get other people’s sympathy.
How is that so precisely, you might wonder? In this article, we will boil down both of these occasions and explain the psychology behind the action of complaining and how it affects us in the opposite way we intend to.
Complaining Leads to Negative thinking & Consequently Negative Outcomes
All of us more or less believe that complaining isn’t helping us achieve anything in particular, yet there are several times when most of us indulge in it regardless.
There is something in complaining that draws us to it, the hypothetical perception that if we do so we will relieve all the negativity in our minds which will consequently get us further away from our problems.
This assumption lies in our subconscious mind, which usually builds it with zero empirical evidence. Our subconscious doesn’t like problems and it just wants them dealt with quickly so it can return to a stress-free state of mind.
However, unfortunately for us, complaining doesn’t release our tension but rather diffuses it. This means that instead of calming our negativity down, we actually break it into smaller pieces that are harder to get disposed of and are thus carried in our minds for a longer time.
Moreover, through complaining, we amplify our negative state since we give ourselves the impression that we are currently in a situation that isn’t working in our favor and that we can’t do something about it. And the longer we think negatively and do not act, the more powerless we will feel.
For example, there there was a time when I complained about the work schedule in my previous job as a waiter. I was saving money back then for future plans and I wanted to work at least 4 to 5 times per week to both save and spend for everyday activities and living costs.
My former boss wanted to equally share the workload because most of us were in the same position as I was, so he split the working schedule so that we were all working 2 to 3 times per week.
In retrospect, it was fair treatment for all of us, but I certainly didn’t like it since I didn’t want to spend much money since I was working less, nor touch any of my savings. So I felt pressured, in the sense that I couldn’t do much of the things I wanted to do at the time nor save as much money as I wanted to.
Hence the complaining started. I complained to my friends, other acquaintances, and colleagues; to everyone possible except for my boss. They all comforted me and some of my colleagues even offered me to work in their place for some shifts.
Of course, I didn’t want to take their place since they needed the money as well, and possibly more than me. And at that point, it occurred to me.
Through my complaining not only I was stressing myself more, but with my attitude, I pressured other people and was even directing my discomfort towards the wrong ones too.
So, after some internal thinking, I steeled myself so that I won’t complain to others and increase the negativity I and other people felt. Furthermore, I decided to face my issue; I would talk to my boss about the working schedule and if there was nothing that could be done, I would start to decrease my everyday spending with zero complaints.
That decision and accompanied action freed me from the shackles that bound me to a negative state of mind and I was able to feel both great about myself and the decisions I made. Also, it helped me solve the issue I had at hand.
“Complaining is draining. Complaining only takes away energy from today and never solves the problems for tomorrow”
– James Altucher
Complaining & Sense of Responsibility
In my previous piece, I covered extensively the meaning and differentiation of responsibility and fault. Now, how are these correlated with complaining?
Blaming other people or external factors is usually easier than taking responsibility for the case at hand. By issuing complaints we usually achieve a hypochondriac version of that; we try to get other people’s sympathy so that they can either take the responsibility for us or lessen our emotional weight.
Certainly, complaining can also take place inside our heads and not towards other people, but the reasoning behind it doesn’t change. Our subconscious just wants the situation that incurs negativity to us to be bygone and it feels that complaining is the fastest way to that.
Now sympathy is desired in the human mind, especially in situations we dislike being, because of the sense of familiarity it induces. Getting our or other people’s sympathy makes us feel more connected with ourselves or others which gives us a feeling of sharing the burden of our negative emotions.
Don’t get me wrong though. Sympathizing with other people or letting them sympathize with you is great. However, it’s foul play to get sympathy in order to feel less responsible and tone down any negative emotions you are feeling as a result of that.
Let me summarize all this with a personal experience. I remember vividly complaining a lot when I wouldn’t get a passing grade in the exams of a university course, during my postgraduate studies.
I complained about the grading system the professor used, how I knew very well the subject but the exam had some random element I wasn’t prepared for, how unfair it was that I hadn’t slept right, etc.
I usually vented about the exams to my friends which felt alright at the moment since they could sympathize with me or tell me about similar experiences they had. Nonetheless, all the complaints piled up and they brought me continuously increased stress when the inevitable exam period came over every 4 months.
During my 4th year, I decided to take matters into my own hand and detach myself from the exam outcome. It didn’t matter what grade I would take or how the professor would be supposedly at fault, or when I would eventually graduate.
For me, the only thing that mattered then, in regards to university, was to learn and study at my own pace, which was something I hadn’t been able to grasp since what I would mostly do was complain or give up in some courses.
The decision to discard this habit changed everything during the period of my postgraduate studies. I found the appropriate way to study productively, with no pressure, and achieve the best results I could get with my methods.
“Complaining is one the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself”
– Eckhart Tolle
Conclusion
Complaining and fretting might seem like the easiest solution and habit to adopt to answer any negative outcome out of a situation we get ourselves into. Next time you try to complain either to yourself or your friends, think about it for a moment; is it truly necessary?
Because, at the end of the day, there’s a reason why it’s so easy to carry out.
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Source:
https://betterhumans.pub/how-complaining-rewires-our-brain-6c0454b0e2ac
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