Separating Fact From Complaint

I recently heard one of our members say, ‘I’m not complaining I’m just stating a fact!’
Okay, then what in PL do we call having ‘a complaining state of mind’ or ‘a complaining attitude’.

If you were expecting to go to the beach to have a good time on the weekend and you planned for this, but then it rained that weekend. If you said, ‘Oh, I was planning to go to the beach but now I can’t because it’s raining.’ That’s a fact, but depending on your state of mind it may also be complaining.

When you say it with emotion, such as, ‘I was planning and looking forward to going to the beach, but now I can’t because of the damn rain.’ This is definitely having a complaining state of mind, although you may also be stating the fact that it’s raining.

If someone close to you, such as a parent, a partner, a sibling or a friend says something harsh to you like, ‘You are a very stingy person who is unwilling to help anyone but yourself.’ This could be a fact, but it could also be an opinion without too much factual basis as a way for the person saying it to hurt you for whatever reason. Now how are you going to react to such a statement?

If it’s with emotion being irritated or very angry then it’s definitely a complaining state of mind. If however, you respond calmly saying something like, ‘I think you misunderstand me if you really believe what you just said,’ then it’s not complaining. You may also respond by saying, ‘Give me some examples when you think I’ve been stingy so I can reflect on it and try to improve myself.’ Then with these last two examples it’s not having a complaining state of mind because you are not letting your emotions take over.

Therefore to determine if you have a complaining state of mind or not, you have to reflect on your feelings. You have to see if you have any emotions about the subject of your potential complaints.

Recognising your complaints and then controlling your emotions is important to your health because having a continual complaining state of mind is an irritation that changes the chemistry of your body and this has the potential to eventually cause severe illness. This is especially true if your complaints result in anger

Also, you must recognise that complaining can be in the past, present or the future. In the future it’s called ‘worrying’ because it’s complaining about something that might occur and in the past it’s ‘grieving’ because you’ve lost something like an opportunity to do well or a relationship that didn’t work out well or you grieve over the death of a person close to you. In all cases you tend to dwell on your loss, which can be a natural process, but when it becomes excessive it’s like complaining to God.

So let’s analyse our complaints and try to minimise them and appreciate everything, even the things that would normally become the subject of our complaints.