No Complaints Bracelet: The Guilt Trip
Posted: Friday, April 27, 2007 10:30 AM by Jaclyn Levin
(Today Producer Stephanie Becker is blogging about wearing the “Complaint Free World” purple rubber bracelet and her attempts to go 21 days without complaining. The bracelet gained national attention after NBC’s George Lewis reported on the Missouri Pastor who challenged his congregation to give up grousing. WATCH VIDEO Each violation called for rotating the bracelet to the other wrist. Stephanie quit the project until….)
(From Stephanie)
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of my abandoned attempt at complaint free living have been greatly exaggerated. That’s probably because I’m the one who wrote it. I quit after being able to go no more than 36 hours straight without grousing. WATCH VIDEO But, a strangely timed message has me back on the wristband bandwagon.
I blame my mother. She’s the one who instilled in me a fear of the mightiest force on earth: greater than the willpower to pass up a cherry cheesecake; more powerful than the strength to walk away from a free seat to the Rolling Stones; able to leap past an deeply discounted Target bargain in a single bound! What is this most powerful force on earth? Guilt.
I was blindsided by its power shortly after what I thought would be my final blog about my non-complaint quest. By then I was a loose-lipped woman, no longer shackled by that two-ton “Complaint Free World” purple rubber bracelet. Its final resting place nestled on the shoulders of a peaceful pink Buddha seemed appropriate. Then blast it all; the good Pastor Will Bowen who came up with the idea posted a comment on the blog.
First, Reverend Bowen corrected an error. (I wonder if he complained about it and switched his bracelet?) I’d written that only 25 of the 4-million-plus people who requested bracelets have achieved no complaining nirvana: twenty-one days of grumble-free life. However Reverend Bowen wrote that there are many more who’d fulfilled the 3-whineless week requirement to qualify for the coveted “Certificate of Happiness.” They just don’t want to be recognized publicly. I guess like Superman or John Lithgow in Third Rock from the Sun they’d rather keep their true identities under wraps so as not to make us more fallible mortals feel inferior.
I think I spotted one of the anonymous achievers at the grocery store. Superheroes seem to hang out in the most innocuous places. She was in front of me on the “Ten items or less!” check out line. The woman was in front of her had a cart groaning with heart clogging processed foods. It was a clear item number violation. I rolled my eyes. Our heroine maintained a simple Mona Lisa smile. Then Heart Clogger’s credit card didn’t work. Finally Heart Clogger reached into her wallet and slowly, so sssssslowly picked out the exact 87-cents worth of coinage to complete the transaction, counting and recounting. I let out an exaggerated exasperated sigh combined with an upper lip sneer. Meryl Streep couldn’t have done better. By the way, does my derisive lip curl require a bracelet rotation? Our heroine continued smiling serenely. How did she remain calm? That’s when I knew I was in the presence of one who’d been Happiness Certified.
Shortly after I abandoned my efforts at complaint-free living, time stood still. Literally. My watch just stopped at 3:32 PM. It was several hours before I realized that it wasn’t 3:32 PM anymore. None of my five back-up watches worked either, teaching me a valuable lesson: time is money. I shelled out $42 for a new watch. Was it karma? A sign? An amazing co-incidence or just another example of how lazy I am that I buy a new watch rather than change the battery?
I should have done better. I’ve actually got a lot of self-discipline. I ride my bike 30 miles a day, check my Camry’s tire pressure every week and floss my teeth not once but twice daily. For some reason I have no tongue suppression when it comes to complaining. It’s a bit jaw dropping to me, although not everyone is surprised that I can’t just stop talking trash.
At a dinner with my boss and her young daughter Maggie, I wanted to curb my cussing and promised Maggie a quarter for every infraction. Thirty minutes later I peeled off a twenty to save time. It’s worth noting that Maggie recently got a purple bracelet too. After an hour she threw it off, telling her mom it was all a stupid idea. Haha! I beat her! How pathetic is it that I’m reveling in outlasting a 14 year old? Well, Maggie just you wait until you’re peri-menopausal then we’ll see.
But the nagging question is this: What’s keeping me from not complaining? And that is a question not a complaint. Why? Because according to Pastor Bowen’s rules, something is a complaint only if energy is expended. So, if I’d written WHY CAN’T I STOP COMPLAINING!? It would be a complaint because I would have used extra oomph to hit the CAP LOCK shift key.
My buddy Martha opines that energy is the fundamental flaw to my success. She figures my failure has to do with a theory of thermodynamics, specifically the law of conservation of energy. That one says that energy can’t be created or destroyed. It can only be moved from one form to another, like ice cubes to water, water to steam, steam to rain, and rain to my roofer’s bank account and so on. She thinks I’d quit bellyaching if I could harness my negative energy more efficiently.
I tried chewing gum (my jaw hurt), splitting my split ends (then got a haircut) and ironing the equivalent of the Mt. Everest of wrinkled shirts in my laundry basket (then I just bought more shirts). Nothing seems to equal the sheer might of a good complaint. Except now, maybe a good guilt trip.
So, when Reverend Bowen finished his blog comment with “please keep up the good work,” I knew, he knew, I knew I wasn’t really trying hard enough. Even if he didn’t know I knew I felt badly about not trying harder. So, you know what? The bracelet is back on. Wish me luck. It’s day one again and counting.
