A Complaint Free World? Talk About Some Silly Bandz.
Two Sundays ago, our pastor handed out purple rubber wristbands with www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org stamped on them. By slipping it on, you pledge not to complain for 21 consecutive days. Each time you grumble, the band switches to the other wrist and 21 days starts over. As of this writing, I’m still on day one after wearing this darn bracelet for nine days straight.
Rats. Switch that silly band again.
It's now on my left wrist.
When you’ve been a wife and mother as long as I have, you think your immune system has built up a resistance to sulking. But I’ve learned if you complain a lot in your mind (all quiet to yourself with no one the wiser), before the sun sets a self-pitying thought slips out. And you’re back to day one.
The confluence of 7 p.m. soccer games, hotdogs for dinner (again) and a bed looking as like it did when you left it that morning seems to be a band mover.
Last Friday night, I was home-free toward eclipsing a complaint-free day one. Then at 8:18 p.m., a referee at the Morgan County High School football game signaled touchdown on a fourth and one attempt by the visiting team.
There should an exemption from having to wear them during football games.
Lucky the Florida verses Mississippi State game wasn’t televised here. My band might have become a colorful choker around someone’s neck. Even before the game started, I had moved my band about something that Saturday. Probably whining about the fact that the game .wasn’t televised. (Thank goodness.)
Though many years from now I might be selecting the perfect mother-of-the-bride dress to match a tattered fuchsia bracelet, I have had a revelation about this complaining business.
I can try to be more thankful. But even if one spends the day counting blessings, there are moments when displeasure with someone or something rises out of the soul and off the lips before you can remember others have it far worse.
That’s our lot as humans. We set expectations. This isn’t bad but often when things don’t happen on our schedule, in our way — a statement of our displeasure bursts forth quicker than a popcorn kernel in a pressure cooker.
Who am I to think things should run according my plan? You would think after 47 years of observation, I would have learned — life is just the opposite. Granted, I’m a pretty poor planner, but even the poorest of planners can have the grandest of expectations of the way things are supposed to be.
That’s where faith comes in. To rid my wrist of this band, I’m choosing to believe that: hurt knees, children who lock the only set of car keys in the car while it’s running, the alarm’s ring, vomit in general and more specifically at 2 a.m., over-commitments, forgetting to plan dinner, a dog stricken with liquid bowel movements all weekend and towering laundry – are the fragrant fabric of my days. Why should I expect life to be different?
By trusting everything works together for good, 21 days of non-complaining should be over – in 21 days.
That or duct tape might be a good purchase next time at Ingles.
I’ve not made it through a day either. Although sometimes I find myself asking, “is just stating a fact complaining?” But usually if I have to ask the question, then yes it is.
I hope to make it until at least 5:00. I have a certain 6 year old accountability partner that continues to ask me if I had to move the band…
Okay — I was up to about Day 3 yesterday, then I failed. I was swimming laps when I realized I had been complaining earlier to Andy and Bill Wood about how BORING swimming laps is. (Oh dear. Is that a complaint?)