So let's boil that down--having a thought makes it easier for you to have that thought again. That's not good news for the perpetually gloomy though happily, it seems gratitude, can work the opposite way, building up your positivity muscles.
It gets worse, too. Not only do repeated negative thoughts make it easier to think yet more negative thoughts, they also make it more likely that negative thoughts will occur to you just randomly walking down the street.
Another way to put this is that being consistently negative starts to push your personality towards the negative. Parton explains how these closer synapses result in a generally more pessimistic outlook: "Through repetition of thought, you've brought the pair of synapses that represent your [negative] proclivities closer and closer together, and when the moment arises for you to form a thought Not only does hanging out with your own negative thoughts rewire your brain for negativity, hanging out with negative people does much the same.
And it does this by attempting to fire the same synapses in your own brain so that you can attempt to relate to the emotion you're observing. And eventually, when I passed by the slow car that created the whole scenario, I realized it was a mother driving with a baby in the backseat. As similar scenarios occurred throughout the following weeks, I began to harbor an enhanced sense of gratitude. I found myself taking moments to reshape my perspective and pausing to count my blessings in the face of something that was bothering me.
As the month progressed, I eventually got to the point where I was able to keep the majority of my complaints at bay. Here are six realizations I had during the challenge: It was pointless to complain about things that I had no control over A lot of what I venting about was out of my hands, so complaining about it was pretty pointless. And the things that were bothering me that I could control, I had the power to change. And when the weather was too hot to go for a hike, I popped in a workout DVD instead.
I stopped using complaining as a bonding mechanism Have you ever found yourself trying to strike up a conversation with a coworker or a stranger by wallowing over a certain situation?
I realized I was doing that a lot. This is taking forever. Why do you complain rather than act? As for me, I hardly have time for this. Both Eastern and Western philosophy share the same belief—our focus should be on our own behavior, not on the behavior of others.
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius speaks to this idea over and over and over again: Look inward, not outward. Remember when you have acted like that, he says, when you see someone acting objectionably. The Stoic does not have time to complain about others because they have too much to improve on at home. Everything else is the business of everyone else. Marcus Aurelius gave himself this advice:. In our interview with A. Jacobs —the author, journalist, and human guinea pig —he talked about the innate human trait that psychologists call negative bias.
One of the things he learned in writing his latest book Thanks A Thousand is how powerful gratitude is in squashing that negative bias.
If you hear a hundred compliments and a single insult, and what do you remember? The insult…It makes life exceedingly unpleasant. Anti-jitney laws restricting cab service to medallions perform a similar function. But it encourages half the population to go to college and fight each other ruthlessly for the limited number of openings, and proclaims the official ideology that everyone can be a manager or technician if everybody goes to college.
Thank you for this article, Alexander! For me, you have hit the nail on the head. I am the person living in your opening paragraph, and on top of that our company is shutting down in 3 months, which adds even more angst! Our boss has been out of town the past week, which has really been an eye opener to the amount of complaing that really goes on. Thank you for the motivation!
Great column! Lots of ideas to ponder. I believe there is destructive complaining along with constructive complaining. The destructive way will certainly bring down an organization if left unaddressed. I know that the USA is a God fearing country, but you guys are just unbelievable.
I can see you all saying helleula praise be to you and all that rot. I am complaining about you bunch of do gooders in the above comments. Or are you all out of work Sunday School teachers from the childrens section of your local Mormans church? I am now going to wait to be told by Big Brother that this is a happy thread not a complaining thread! This was a very good article. I agree with most of it. I am usually very quiet at work, I keep to myself but am very friendly, accomodating to people that I work with and have never had a complaint in about 3 years working at my place of business.
Last week, I came in to talk with my boss about something that bothered me not a complaint about a person, but something policy related I asked if I could come talk to him once or twice a year when something bothered me and he basically said unless it is something that HE deems worthy, he would bitch me out of the office. It seems as if this article was written by management. I agree that complaining among co workers creates a certain unity.
The current trend at least in the US is more work, less pay. I totally agree with tbeck of the 30Mar HR personnel are in my opinion snakes that can never be trusted with workers rights, conditions of service or salary rates. Management would really like Australian workers to revert to the Rate of pay that the majority of Chinese in China receive e. The same goes for basic workers except Management and their Associations fight to not pay any worker one cent more. I used to work in a toxic workgroup, and I recognized it for what it was right from Day One.
Their little clique of complainers undermined upper management and wasted a lot of time. This saved my sanity, but the price was being excluded from useful information. I had to develop my own network of positive people who I could vent to about the gossipers, of course!
Useful information usually came to me eventually through my own circle or through official channels. Still, it was annoying to be cut out of the loop. It detracts us from our critical thinking process and our duty to present the other side of the Truth for the greater good of all.
All you non complainers do is whine about us and bitch, bitch, bitch. All that sunshine and lollipop living has made you cranky. They constantly complained about this person, but never do anything to improve the situation. Any ideas? A person in the workplace who complains about just about everything, wants to be in control of everything and everyone around them.
I happen to like my job, especially when unemployment in our country is sky high right now. They even show disrespect for our manager in our kitchen, who by the way is doing an excellent job this is her second year.
Thanks for a very informative read. I see myself complaining more and more at my job. Hopefully, I can turn things around using the insight you have provided. This exactly describes my current workplace. And since I was favoured by the management and got whatever I asked for, the others who were envious thought that if they complained more and acted like me indignant about everything they too could enjoy my status.
Unfortunately, i was also given certain high profile projects more fuel for their envy whcih I was the first to admit, I was not equal to. Since I observed this negative trend, I have kept myself out of their way, inwardly sorry that I did not set a better example. A valuable lesson learned. You DO reap what you sow!
I take pride in my work. Althought I dont agree, I have been labelled a bragger because I would rather look at the positive aspects of my work as opposed to bellyaching all day. At the end of the day, they can say what they like because I go home happy with my day while they probably go home stressed out.
Yes, I agree. But sometimes you just have to let it out. Its just a nice to be able to gripe and not worry about the hype : JustGriping. I think complaining can be healthy, if it is done correctly and in reason. A good physical workout seems helps too. I almost always feel better after a good day of work, as opposed to a day that I just bummed around. Regardless of what works for you, I feel it is important to find an outlet for all of the stress that we have to deal with in today.
I quit my first job out of college about a year ago now. The reason I said was to focus on more schooling but in actuality it was because I was king of the complainers. This post is very accurate and I have to agree with it percent. I had created cliques within my company and had become a real threat to the integrity of the company. At this point I noticed my productivity was going down the toilet and I was starting to not care. Everyone was lying to one anther and lower level management had given up on fighting for us individually or so I felt.
Having had a year to reflect on everything and and looking back and analizing all my bosses decisions. I know see that there may have been some things wrong with the company but it was not any of those things that made it a unbearable place to work it was me.
I constantly complained about everything from taking away from our department to demanding faster deadlines to the lack of health insurance and so on. It got the point where I spent every second of every day complaining about something.
My boss was far to nice to fire me and was and is still a great guy. However after going for a walk one day I took a reflective moment and realized that my complaining was tearing apart our company. Back then I had no clue how to address this problem but I knew it needed solved so did the only thing I could think of and quit.
Now a year latter I talk to individuals in the company and they say that the company atmosphere is great. I share my story in the hopes that others will not make the same mistake I did. If you work in any field and have a complaint do what you can to fix it.
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