Life is a combination of a limited amount of time and a limited amount of energy. Complaining is one of the best ways to waste it.
I’ve been reading up and learning about stoicism (Marcus Aurelius rocks, baby) and if the most important points of stoicism get distilled into one article, it would be this. The rest are examples of how to practice it.
The difference between complaining and speaking out often gets confused, and the author explains it really well.
I haven’t been complaining for quiet a while now, and it’s liberating. So many things did not happen the way I had planned on this drive, and every situation was a decision point. To be frustrated, complain and blame, or find a solution and overcome. Instead of complaining and blaming, I keep my mouth shut and speak out when it’s necessary instead, and give my time and energy to either finding solutions or walking away.
Complaining is essentially questioning why other people and situations won’t act and happen the way we want them to in order to keep us happy. It’s saying to ourselves that we are helpless victims, and it’s all their fault we are not as happy, not as rich, not as successful, not as healthy or not as good a person that we would otherwise be.
Complaining is seeking blame, speaking out is seeking accountability. There is a huge difference.
The funny thing is, the less I complain, the more I see people complaining every single day, everywhere, and more or less getting nowhere. They’re angry, they’re outraged, they virtue signal incessantly, and they rinse and repeat. They seem to be stuck in a loop, the same loop I was stuck in for so long.
Anyways, read this. Save it. Read it again regularly. It’s good.