Let's be realistic. The world is filled with bad things. There are bad thoughts, bad deeds, bad language, bad smells, bad people, etc. You get the idea. The list could go on and on. But there are plenty of good things in the world too if people would just open themselves to the good. People complain constantly. Just think, we'd all be billionaires if we could take complaints to the bank. If we would live our lives with the zest and consistency with which we complain, imagine what we would accomplish.
That's my whole point. We waste so much valuable energy complaining. What does complaining accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Yet people complain about everything. Is this what we've been reduced to? A society of chronic complainers that can only see the world in shades of grey. Why is it so easy to recognize the negative yet so difficult to find the positive?
We wish that we had a nicer house like our neighbors across the street. We complain that we need a new car. We complain that our job doesn't pay enough. But we forget to be grateful that we have a car, house and job. What about people who don't have these things? We complain about a lack of luxury when there are people in our world that don't even have the basic necessities let alone any luxuries. In fact, what most of us consider necessities would be luxuries to those that are truly in need. How much more would we complain if we didn't have a house, car or job?
Even on good days we still find something to complain about. Perhaps we stop at the store on the way home and have to wait in line at the checkout counter. So we have to wait. Why complain? Maybe patience is one of the lessons that life is trying to teach us. Until we learn that lesson life will keep making us wait in line. We don't often realize that life puts us in certain situations for a reason. The more stubborn and defiant we are the longer it takes for us to learn what we are meant to learn. Consequently, we hinder our own progress. We impede our ability to move forward.
When we are busy complaining all the time we get so wrapped up in the subject matter of our complaints that we don't recognize the lesson we are being taught. We also don't realize that the person with the full shopping cart in front of us in the checkout line or the slow moving cashier are our teachers in the school of life.
I belong to a family of chronic complainers and sometimes I find myself getting frustrated at times because they are blind to the blessings that are right in front of them. Like so many others, they are consumed with feeling victimized, always focused on how bad life has treated them. They talk about the bad hands life has dealt them yet they're always so eager to throw in the hand rather than playing it out. Most people are like that; they either don't know how or aren't willing to try and make the best of what life has given them.
There are many examples throughout history of people who grew up in bad circumstances. Life had given them very little to work with yet they were grateful for what they did have. They learned to overcome and rise above their circumstances to become some of the greatest people in history. These people took the few seeds that they had, planted and nurtured them and grew them into a fruitful field. Most certainly there were many times that their fruit was choked by weeds but they did not succumb to the weeds but overcame them. People such as these aren't great because of what they have in the world but because of what they have in their minds and hearts.
