Points of failure: The complaining experiment.

For the past few months I’ve been listing a few things to be grateful for each night. I’m often surprised at how small things that I never thought to be thankful for make an appearance:

•A favorite Indian restaurant taking my order near their closing time.

•An annoying client who I never thought to be anything other than irked by.

•Having a dishwasher for the first time.

These add joy, comfort and stability to my life; no small thing.

I started this practice because I noticed that I had been complaining a lot for any reason I could get my hands on: the weather turning sooner than expected, having to renew my license in person, or because after five years fully remote, I’ve had to return to an office once a week.

My daily gratitude list resets my perspective. It’s a reminder that my scale tips far more toward fortunate than not.

I recently drove out of town to an event I had planned for months, where the turnout didn’t go as well as expected and a fellow organizer couldn’t stop complaining about it. My self-righteousness kicked in: learn and move on, complaining just ruins the vibe and makes things worse, I told him.

Then, at the next restroom stop, I had to look myself in the mirror and ask why not take my own advice?

Looking for a way out of my negativity loop, I started reading a book about the nature of thinking: “Most of our yearning for approval, money, and significance stem from a desire to experience certain feelings such as joy, peace, freedom and fulfillment.”

Complaints, I realized, were my way of filing a grievance about not having some of those feelings yet.

So on the last day of August, I gave myself a one-day experiment: don’t complain. It even fell on a day I had to go into the office. I noticed how the weather and the commute stayed the same, but my day felt lighter.

When you have a purpose, acceptance doesn't mean giving up. I can strive to be in full control of my time, and to live in warm weather, but I don’t need to make the journey harder by complaining about every obstacle along the way, I need to find my way around them.

That evening, self-awareness, a ’99 Camry, and microwaves made my gratitude list.