Complaining

One of the fun times I have ever enjoyed as a staffer was sitting around complaining about how lousy the management was at making decisions. I use to think of it as comrades getting together to laugh and joke about leadership. Then one day I woke up with a realisation that as complainers we were making ourselves miserable by reliving a horrible situation that in most cases would never get repaired because bad leaders, to my surprise, only care about one thing, themselves.

Over the past year, it feels effortless to fall back into the ongoing rotation of complaining. Often it goes on for so long that you fall into a routine, and it becomes a part of your life. Over time I have found myself sitting around over drinking and complaining with colleagues, or when alone, looking in a mirror while brushing my teeth. I can hear that voice complaining in my head about one thing or another. Complaints have a way of slipping in when we aren’t even thinking about anything. Here are a few examples of how it slides into our mindset:

• When thinking of going for a walk, you step outside and it’s cold and starting to rain.
• You plan a trip to your local grocery store to pick up something you have been craving for a while, but when you get there, it’s out of stock.
• You are waiting on a special call from a friend, the phone rings and you run to pick it up and…