Most people don’t want to be around a chronic complainer. You know the one that shows up at the family picnic. You see her coming and everyone starts disappearing, but wait you couldn’t get away from dear old Aunt Bertha. So you endure the conversation, wondering when she’ll ever quit whining about Uncle Harold’s snoring and Aunt Beth’s teeth. You sit there for the 30 minutes wondering when you will find your out.

While writing this it got me to thinking, where do I rank on the complainer score sheet? Yeah, it’s hard not to complain when life seems to suck when you’re in a lupus flare, and the pain never seems to end. You wake up and if its not one thing hurting it’s another new symptom.

I’m challenging myself not to complain as much about living with lupus and pain, even if it does suck. After all everyone one around me knows I have lupus. It’s not like you can’t figure out when I’m in pain. I’m not very good at hiding it, although I have tried to hide it. I won’t say that I will not complain about living with lupus by no means.

Here’s my thinking, if I don’t complain as much, maybe I won’t be constantly reminded of how much I hate lupus. Yeah, it’s given me some positives, but the negative ones outweigh the positive ones. (that’s another post-tba)

So I’m going to ask you to try this test:

Find yourself a pen and paper and write down all your complaints for the day.
Look at each one and think how you could possibly reduce the amount of complaining you do in a day. Is the complaint something you could fix? Is the complaint something you have been avoiding doing? (get it done, so you can check it off your list).

So, the next time you complain about something find something that you can compliment. You see the compliment is good for the receiver and for the giver. You both should come out feeling O’ so good.