Drink Some Water, Go Outside

I’m not the person that people feel confident taking their complaints to. 

Problems, yes. But complaints? Not so much. I’m not good at being a sympathetic listener when someone is airing their grievances or annoyances. I try to give as little time to my own complaints as I can, so unfortunately I do the same for others.

Be that way consistently for a couple decades, and people tend to not bring complaints to you.  

What I think of as being helpful is not what people want to hear when they are annoyed about something. Oh, someone was rude to you? Huh, maybe they are just having a bad day. It’s not untrue. It just doesn’t provide the space a person wants to keep complaining. [Apparently, it feels like I’m giving sympathy to the wrong side.]

We all complain sometimes. But I’ve always found it fascinating that the people who complain more often can always find more to complain about. The quick dopamine rush we get from the sympathy of another person makes us feel good for a moment, so we chase after it. It’s a cycle: find something to be annoyed about, complain, receive sympathy, dopamine hit. Rinse and repeat.

If complaining really does make us feel better, wouldn’t it give us less to complain about?

The thing is, you start complaining less by actually complaining less. Without the dopamine rush from someone’s sympathy, the cycle breaks. 

I’ve found this to be true every time I’ve ever realized that I’m consistently making a big deal of all little things that won’t really matter in three minutes. Those are the times I’ve felt consistently grumpy, and the most discontent with my life. When I give my complaints enough space to grow, they do. And it never helps me feel better. Only worse.

So, I consciously break the cycle. My coffee order was wrong? Oh well, I’m going to drink it anyway and keep it to myself. Someone cut me off in traffic? It happens, and no one needs to hear about it. I forgot to buy something at the grocery store? I guess I’ll just have to make dinner without it.

It only takes a day or two of consciously biting my tongue before I lose the itch to complain out loud. Actually, it’s more that I stop itching to complain at all, even inside my own head. Within a few days, the sun suddenly feels like it’s shining a little brighter. [Or when it’s winter in the midwest, the sky feels at least a little less grey.]

There are two other things I do to make my complaints and problems feel smaller, less daunting to tackle. They are little things and only take a few minutes to do. But I consider them to be absolutely crucial steps when you are trying to solve anything. Or when you are simply trying to feel better. Drink some water, and get some fresh air.

Have a glass of water and go outside. Give it five minutes. I don’t know why it helps in every situation, but somehow it does. And it’s the best advice I give.

This year it feels like people are complaining more than usual. I get it. The past nine months have given us a lot of things to complain about. But, what if we took a day off from voicing our complaints? I wonder how many of us would discover that we suddenly have less of them. 

What if instead, you told yourself this? You are probably just dehydrated and you could use some fresh air. Have a glass of water and go outside. Give it five minutes to kick in.