The Art of Owning the Universe
I have believed that when you are feeling sorry for yourself, the best thing to do is to help someone else.
Patricia Heaton
We all go through bad days (perceived or otherwise) and face challenges in our life, but complaining adds no value to our life or even the world outside. Although complaining or venting can make one feel better for the time being, as letting out a negative experience certainly feels better than keeping it in, but over complaining or petulance does not solve problem, if we make it our way of life. In spite of that most people continue grumbling and grousing without thinking or focusing their energies on finding a solution.
Complaining is generally defined as expressing discontent or resentment and complaining bitterly and usually without end is a favourite pastime of most of the people. They like, or rather love, to moan and groan about everything on earth like weather, politics, societal injustices, lack of opportunities, undue pain and suffering in the world and the list goes on.
So much so that sometimes complaining or rather whining seems to have become habitual or even addictive. In short, it becomes their way of life and also compounds negativity.
It is believed that complaining is a common trait which can be noticed among most of us including even seemingly most happiest and placid persons on the planet. And some research reports indicate that an average person complains anywhere between 15 and 30 times a day. In a survey conducted in the UK, it was revealed people spend, on average, 10,000 minutes a year moaning. The survey claimed that millennials whinged the most. Weather and politics dominated as the leading source of moans, with relationships, work colleagues and rude clients also featuring. However, complaining ad-infinitum can result in creating more problems than solving any.
While grumblers may think that they are just “venting” or “broaching,” in reality, complaining has significant impacts on our brains and our happiness. And even though, it’s usually thought harmless and/or healthy to sometimes express the feelings of discontent as sharing our troubles and problems can lighten our mental load and facilitate gaining other perspectives, but if it’s constantly happening in your life and has become an attitude, it can begin to have a very serious effects or repercussions.
Constant whining, psychologists say, casts a dark cloud over the horizon of your life. It exaggerates challenges, is emotionally draining and impacts negatively on morale, creativity and productivity. Chronic complaining, they further reveal, also induces negativity, rewires the brain and activates or increases the stress hormone cortisol.
Moreover, chronically high levels of cortisol can lead to a variety of health problems, including increased risk of depression, digestive problems, sleep issues, higher blood pressure and even increased risk of heart disease. In addition, it also impairs your immune system and makes you more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. It even makes the brain more vulnerable to strokes.
And another problem, as a quote superbly transmits, is that habitual whiners not only complain about everything on earth (of course, without trying to find a way out by accepting their own responsibility), but also are never willing to tolerate a single complaint about themselves.
The reasons, that psychologists enumerate include attention seeking, low level of tolerance, and/or depression etc., but mother of all the reasons is that they always have so many expectations from others. And when their expectations are not fulfilled, especially when they involve the failure of other people to behave the way they expect them to, the result is an utter disappointment and frustration or even the loss of sanity or mental balance.
Thus, instead of solving any problem, this attitude makes life more miserable. In addition to taking away the energy and power to make things happen, talking more about the problems rather than any solutions makes you keep sinking in the quicksand instead of getting out of it.
So the question that arises in the mind is:
“How to get rid of this negative and toxic behaviour and change your life for better?”
The answer is as brief and apt as it is true:
Stop expecting from and blaming others and start believing that “You are the creator/owner of your own Destiny or Universe.”
According to the universal “Law of Correspondence,” patterns repeat throughout the universe, and on a personal level, your reality is a mirror of what’s happening inside you (and not outside) at that moment. Think “As above, so below. As within, so without.” The law further tells that what is happening is happening for you, not to you. “If your life is troubling, chaotic and fearful,” the law say, “it’s because there is trouble, chaos and fear within. If your life seems calm and grounded, it is because you feel peace within.”
There is a quote by (late) Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian guru of nondualism, which says that “All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.”
In other words, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are helpless or half-crazy lunatic, as most of us do nowadays. You can do anything and everything, without even the guidance of anyone. Stand up and express the divinity within you. There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists inside. Seek nothing outside of yourself.
Remember you cannot take action on plans that do not exist. You can do nothing if you don’t stop complaining and/or blaming. Once you’ve stopped complaining and made your plans it is time to take action and start following your path.
However, planning doesn’t mean overthinking. Overthinking is an anxious tendency or in specific term it is a generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). While you may believe that continuing to think and rethink about things that bother you is problem-solving, but according to psychologists, this habit of overthinking doesn’t usually provide any resolution. Instead, it creates more stress by focusing on the negative, dwelling on the past and worrying about your future.
In a nutshell, by changing your thinking and thus your attitude, you can influence, direct, and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be. When you take responsibility for your thoughts and actions and their outcomes you can become unstoppable.
In the end, I would like to reproduce some wonderful quotes that can help the whiners to come out of the morass of self pitying, grouching, growling , grumbling, and bleating.
- “What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now - “Never tell your problems to anyone…20% don’t care and the other 80% are glad you have them.”
― Lou Holtz - To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
And last, but not the least, Alexander Graham Bell’s following words give a totally new perspective and thus have the potential to transform or rather revolutionize your whole life:
Apparently this quote may seem over optimistic or/and oversimplified, but it simply says that If one thing you do fails, you will soon have an opportunity to try to succeed at something else. Bell himself had faced many hardships in his life. He had two brothers that died of tuberculosis. Another problem Alexander Graham Bell faced was that there were other people who claimed they had invented the telephone or had the idea before Bell. It took 18 years and over 550 court cases, but Alexander Graham Bell won every battle. There is also the famous story according to which, Edison failed to refine the light bulb (one of the few creations he merely refined but did not invent) so many times it took him 10,000 attempts to perfect. However rather than whining or accepting failure 9,999 times he is quoted while answering questions on his failures: ‘I have not failed. I have just found 9,999 ways that do not work’.
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References:
i) https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/moaning-is-bad-for-your-health-1.3965976
ii) https://www.pinterest.com/pin/329818372720753260/
iii) https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/complaining
iv) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/sedulous-speak/how-to-stop-complaining-25072/
v) https://agencyofjoy.com/how-i-became-the-owner-of-my-own-destiny/
