Complain Appropriately

I love complaining.

I love being the pettiest of tyrants—parking lots on the west coast and 5 star hotels get severe dressings-down from me.

(What on earth were they thinking? Where is the functionality??)

Complaint and criticism and the desire to complain and criticize is part of the wholeness of our humanity.

Embracing this, however, does not justify the relational-destruction wrought when those complaints and criticisms fall on the ones we claim we love. Embracing the activity of complaint, on the contrary, means we can no longer direct complaint and criticism toward those we love.

Complaining and criticizing, when we acknowledge and accept them as practices we choose to enact in the world, gain legitimacy as a choice and lose authority as an inevitability.

When I know I want to complain, I do so in contexts I deem appropriate. I watch closely how complaint and criticism shift and validate the emotions churning within me, and notice the addictive thrill of the practice.

When I think I'm righteously pointing out the flaws of the world for the general betterment of humanity, I do so in all contexts and wreak havoc on my own experience of love and appreciation for those close to me. The addictive thrill overtakes me and I harm those I love.

Every component of our whole humanity has a place in this world, an appropriate way of expressing in our most aligned life.

Adulthood is taking responsibility for the choices we make about who we will be in our one and only life.

There is nothing that the world requires of you, no inevitabilities.

There is nothing the world owes to you, no guarantees.

You are choosing who to be in every moment.