Ponder Post: Complaint Free World

I am usually slow to jump onto the bandwagon for "world-revolutionizing" ideas. I read Made to Stick and Switch by Chip and Dan Heath in 2014 when they were written in 2007 and 2010 respectively. A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen was published in 2007 – yep, a full decade ago – and I have just now discovered it. But if an idea is good or relevant it stays around for a bit. Complaining seemed a very relevant topic this presidential election year and as I age in general so this book appealed.

The mechanism of the movement is a bit of a gimmick. Wear a purple bracelet on your wrist and every time you find yourself complaining, switch it to the other wrist. Since it takes 21 days to form or break a habit, so research suggests, your goal is to go 21 consecutive days without having to move the bracelet. If you slip up and complain you must start again at Day 1. Participants in the program quickly learned it is not as easy as it sounds.

The book is organized into four parts that define the stages of becoming complaint free:

1. Unconscious Incompetence - you do not even know you are complaining
2. Conscious Incompetence - you are aware you are complaining but do so anyway
3. Conscious Competence - you recognize and can stop a complaint before it leaves your lips
4. Unconscious Competence - you stop complaining without much effort

The book addresses several queries and challenges by definition and anecdotal example. What is a complaint, any way? It involves grief, pain, or discontentment. A complaint is determined by the feeling or motive behind the statement. "It is hot." Is this a statement of fact or a complaint? If it is voiced by a weather man it is probably just a fact. If it is voiced by an impatient individual sitting in an non-air-conditioned car at a red light that seems stuck, it probably is a complaint.

Isn't complaining justified? Where would our nation be if the early colonists had not complained? The key point here is that it was not their complaints that brought about change, but their actions.

The benefits of a complaint free environment are touted. The overall tone becomes one of focusing on the positive rather than the negative and life becomes more enjoyable. Become aware of a typical conversation. One person complains, another joins in the conversation expressing commonality by relating his comparably bad or even worse experience. The conversation escalates, or perhaps I should say degenerates, into a morass of unpleasantness. If complaints were eliminated from that conversation the result would be a happier ambience... or perhaps no ambience at all. Beware of those friends or acquaintances with whom all you have in common is negativity. Is your only topic of conversation complaining?

I checked this small 5"x8"x¾" book out of the library and read it in one sitting. It inspired me enough to try this complaint-free attitude on for size. I am not doing the bracelet thing. I would probably get a rash beneath it. See? Funny or complaining? I think I am only at stage 2 where I recognize where I am complaining but am not skilled enough to stop it. I recommend giving A Complaint-Free World a try. The writing style is simple, the examples are decidedly illustrative, many of the stories are exceedingly touching, and the results are much more than I expected. There were many points that got my attention and merit further consideration. The anecdotal story involving this saying is memorable. Read it for that alone.