We complain… a lot.

We complain. My goodness, do we complain.

Every day, all day. Open a community WhatsApp group and there it is. A photograph of rubbish dumped on the side of the road. A dirty river. A pothole. A broken streetlight. An overflowing bin. Someone parking badly. A neighbour whose grass is too long. A municipality that hasn’t done something. A business that got something wrong. Crime, traffic, noise, service delivery, load shedding, water, politicians, other people’s behaviour.

And yes, many of these things are frustrating. Some are unacceptable. Some absolutely need to change.

But here is my question: What are YOU personally doing about the things you continually complain about?

If the litter in your neighbourhood makes you angry, have you ever taken a bag and picked some of it up? Have you joined or started a community clean-up? If the river is filthy, have you found the people already working to restore it and offered your hands, your time or your resources? If you’re concerned about crime, are you involved in your community safety initiatives? If someone in your community is struggling, are you helping, or are you simply talking about how terrible everything has become?

And I can already hear it: “But I didn’t make the mess. Why should I clean it up?”

You’re right. You didn’t. And perhaps it shouldn’t be your responsibility.

But here’s the thing. If you’re going to give it your energy every single day, photograph it, post it, discuss it, get angry about it and carry it around with you, you’ve already made it your problem.

Complaining without action changes absolutely nothing. It simply keeps us focused on everything that is wrong. And when we continually live in anger, frustration, judgement and negativity, we keep ourselves in that same low-frequency state. We begin looking for what’s wrong everywhere, and unsurprisingly, we keep finding more of it.

I’m not saying we should ignore problems or pretend everything is wonderful. Awareness is necessary. Speaking up is sometimes necessary. But awareness followed by action is very different from perpetual complaining.

Who cares who should have done it? Who cares whose fault it is? If something matters enough to you that you’re prepared to give it your energy every single day, perhaps ask yourself a different question:

What can I actually DO?

Pick up five pieces of rubbish. Plant something. Volunteer somewhere. Help a neighbour. Report the pothole instead of forwarding its photograph twenty times. Support the people already creating change. Start something yourself. Become part of the solution, however small your contribution may seem.

And if you’re genuinely not prepared to do anything about it, that’s okay too.

But then perhaps it’s time to stop complaining about it.

Because you can sit until the end of time pointing at everything that’s wrong with the world, or you can take the energy you’re spending complaining and use it to make one tiny corner of that world a little better.

Imagine what would happen if we all did that.

~ Angy-Lee ~
Our Heart Centre