By Aisha Espinosa
Staff Writer
@aishaespinosa1
“That teacher cannot teach, like, at all.”
“Dude, we have so much reading for APUSH tonight. It’s going to take forever.”
Complaints are everywhere, especially at a high school filled with teens complaining just to complain. The act of complaining and grumbling is something my generation grew up with, something that is so common that no one stops to question it anymore.
I used to roll my eyes whenever I heard someone else complain about something insignificant, like how boring a class was or how there was nothing appealing in the cafeteria for lunch. Sometimes, I would even add a snide “sounds like a personal problem” in my head.
But somewhere along the way of making fun of these complainers, I became one. If I had not been looking for story ideas and come across an article of Melissa Dahl’s for NY Mag, I most likely would never have noticed the change.
After reading her post, “I Went 7 Days Without Complaining,” I started paying more attention to my habits, and I was surprised at what I observed – in the 30 minute time-span of lunch, I complained six times. Basically, once every five minutes.
When did I become such a complainer? Sometime between freshman year and junior year, I went from seeing the positive things to focusing almost entirely on the negative aspects of daily life. So, I challenged myself to a week without complaining, thinking it was going to be the hardest week of my life. I was so, so wrong.
The first day, a Monday, I slipped up eight times – I was anxious about one of my classes, European History. It was only after I made it through the class that I realized I had broken my no complaint deal.
Could I not make it a day without complaining even once?
It turns out, I could. The next day, I made it through all of my classes without a single negative thing to say. I finished all of my homework without ever saying “I don’t want to do this” or “this is taking too long”.
So, on my third day, I decided to take the little challenge one step further – turn negative thoughts into positive ones. Every complaint that I started to say would have to be turned around.
“I had so much homework to do last night” turned into “I got so much work done last night”, for instance. By the end of the week, I was great at not complaining. I could quickly spin a negative phrase into a positive one if I felt the need to say something, but for the most part, I dismissed complaints as soon as they popped into my head.
At the end of a week, not complaining led to getting more work done. It let me finish things faster and more efficiently. I had a more positive outlook on doing menial things, like reading and taking notes for classes
But, while the week without complaining went better than expected, I was relieved to be able to complain again. Eliminating negativity did wonders for my mental health during the week, but I missed being able to complain about things that actually mattered to me.
Though there will not be a stretch of time where I go without complaints, I am making a conscious effort not to bring myself – or others around me – with unnecessary bits of negativity.
A happy medium should be found, a frame of mind where it is okay to complain about stressful tests, someone cutting you off when driving or even the school’s Wi-Fi and Virtual Private Network (VPN) problems. But these should be occasional, and we should remember that life is better in the sun than with a thundercloud over our heads.
