Controlling Complaining

I admit it. I'm a whiner and a complainer. Big time. I sort of enjoy whining and complaining and I'm pretty good at it. Funny about it usually I guess. Most of my friends are pretty good at it too. But I realized that most of my conversations involve some sort of whine complainy type thing. Either from me or whoever I'm talking to. Whether it's about work. Or other friends. Or parents. Or money. Or the world. Or whatever. It seems like the immediate go-to thing in conversation is to complain. Maybe that's normal. But is it?

Maybe it's because I live in New York but it seems alot people complain alot. (Alot of people will be happy to complain about how I spell a-l-o-t alot). But it feels like complaining and complaints actually drive most of my conversations. In fact, I think alot of the friends I've made over the years are people who I was able to complain to and vice versa. We were able to communicate that way and be on the same page. Maybe it's some sort of sociological psychological test to see if we're compatible friendily.

Not sure if everyone is like this. I know there are alot of people who don't complain at all. Who sort of just suck it up and don't want to deal with complaining about whatever because they don't think it's important or don't want to bother people or don't want to acknowledge bad stuff or whatever. Not sure if that's good or bad. I guess it's case by case.

Anyway, today I was talking to a friend of mine for like 20 minutes bitching about how much cellphones suck then we moved on and complained about a mutual friend. That was the whole conversation pretty much. Nothing really 'good' got in there anywhere. Then I spoke to another friend and I complained about having to get a haircut later today because the back of my neck is like hairy and I think that looks bad. I complained about how back of the neck hair should not force a full-on haircut. We both complained about the neck hair annoyance. That moved on to me complaining about how I'm tired of people not inventing things that are specific for me personally. Like some sort of hand-mitt electric razor thing or something...

Ok whatever. Not serious complaints at all.

Anyway, maybe I'm feeling appreciative for the things I have or I'm just in a mood or sick of hearing my own whine-- but today I'm going to try and make a real effort to not complain about anything at all. Not me. Not stuff. Not other people. Not other friends. I'm going to monitor my conversation and see if I slip or what complaints pop into my head that I won't let out. Just as an experiment. To see how it feels. It'll be a new experience for sure.

Tomorrow I'll probably complain about how much not complaining sucks and how I'm mad at my brain for making me do things...

ok bye!

tOdd