Spiritual Homework: 21 Days of no complaining

So here is the challenge: Go 21 days without complaining. If you do slip up, gently forgive yourself and begin again at day 1. Today is my 5th Day 1. I did make it to Day 2 earlier last week, but then I had a school in service on diversity.

SO here is what I learned: sometimes complaining is fun, also complaining is a huge part of the culture at my school. If you ask any of my co-workers, they would quickly tell you that they love their job, yet they gripe about it constantly. This has been difficult, because the more they complain, the more I remember all the things there are to complain about. What helps? Being happy. If I am in a good mood, even when irritating things happen I seem to navigate better. Also, I've amended the no complaining to no complaining out loud. I am trying to do better inside my head as well, but that is a lot of mind training and I'm not quite there yet. Living in the bitch free zone is a lot like going through sugar detox, painful, and a brutal eye opener to an addiction I never knew I had.

Why am I doing this? To see if I can....to see if it changes the quality of my life. Everyone says they want to be happy, but I'm beginning to think that's not entirely true. It's easy to be happy when nothing is bugging you, when you don't have to do lice checks, or lots of data entry...but what if you could find a way to make even the most tedious or irritating parts of your day fun or at least less painful. What if, you replaced the complaint with a compliment or a suggestion, or even just a thank you to the universe for something good that happened? I don't know, maybe everything would be the same...but I'd like to find out. Yes, I know this is a far departure from my normal comfortable role as sarcastic observer, but the definition of insanity if doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I'm ready for my different results.