No Complaint Zone... Can You Do It?

The Today Show profiled Pastor Will Bowen, the originator of a new movement to stop complaining. He was tired of his church members griping about trivial matters and decided to ask them to make a pledge to give up complaints and other negative behaviors for 21 days. This pact became so successful that it has spread all over the country.

Do you think you can stop complaining? Would you be able to give up complaining, gossip, and criticism anyone or use sarcasm for 21 days, with the goal being to give them up forever? If you want to and think you can, here is what you have to do. To participate in this purple rubber bracelet movement you need to visit acomplaintfreeworld.org for a free bracelet. The way it works is you move your bracelet from arm to arm every time you complain. When you have made it 21 full days without complaining (it takes many people seven months to a year to get to that point), you get a certificate of happiness.

Can I stop complaining? I do not think so. Most of the articles I write stem from something that gets me steamed. Writing is often my means of complaining. The same writing of course is my source of income. If I did not bitch and moan, I would be stuck writing happy little stories that would eventually bore me senseless. I doubt this would make my readers happy either.

My mother, God rest her soul, would have probably burned (or at least melted) her bracelet. She wasn't necessarily the type of person to complain about trivial things, but she also wasn't one to sit quietly when she felt abused, or neglected or witnessed someone else being mistreated. She claimed to have doctor's orders to let people know exactly what was on her mind in no uncertain terms. You see, she had suffered from high blood pressure and her levels were chronically dangerous. She said her doctor told her to stop holding in annoyance and anger or it would kill her. Therefore, if something bugged her, you had better believe she would tell you. She was my hero!