Rev Will Bowen is the pastor of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City, Missouri. It's conceivable that some in the Guardian-reading demographic won't leap to take advice from a Christian minister in a conservative US state. It probably doesn't help, either, that Bowen has written a book (and, with Oprah's help, launched a global phenomenon) on challenging people to stop complaining for 21 days straight. The title, A Complaint-Free World, smacks of self-help's conformist bias: who wants to be a compliant cog in the machine anyhow? Besides, perhaps you enjoy complaining. I like few things better than firing off witheringly pompous letters to utilities companies who treat me with contempt and incompetence, though, of course, it would be an abuse of my position as a journalist to name even the worst offender. Oh, go on, then: npower.
"I'm not a good little cog," Bowen told me before I tried his challenge, which involves wearing a purple plastic wristband and switching it from wrist to wrist when you catch yourself complaining. "But I learned this British term: whingeing. Dissatisfaction is the first step to positive change. But I'm saying take more control, make the change you want; don't just whinge."
What began as a local project has mushroomed: millions of purple bracelets have been distributed (through www.acomplaintfreeworld.org). Out of self-consciousness, I switched mine from pocket to pocket, not wrist to wrist, but as Bowen readily accepts, you don't really need one at all - you can use any small object. This is a venerable behavioural therapy trick for inculcating any new habit.
Complaining, Bowen says, doesn't include neutrally telling someone they're doing something wrong, let alone speaking up against abusive treatment; he's talking, specifically, about the kind of moaning that just makes us feel worse - and which we vent, mostly, on friends who can't do anything about it, rather than the person or institution we want to change. On average, Bowen says, it takes five to seven months to reach 21 complaint-free days; I haven't made it past two. And, as the process made horribly clear, I don't spend much of my life getting righteously angry about economic injustice or warfare: I spend it whingeing about people, or about tasks that end up taking less time than the whingeing. And, unscientifically, I felt far better when I wasn't whingeing. This is a useful reminder that the metaphorical way we think about emotion (essentially, as a kind of gas that mustn't be "bottled up" because the "pressure will build", etc) isn't always useful. Sometimes, not talking helps.
Bowen ropes in an old joke to illustrate his point that we complain not to change things but as an alternative to doing so. Two builders eat their packed lunches together. Day after day, one finds he's got meatloaf sandwiches and complains - "Another meatloaf sandwich?" - until finally his colleague can't contain himself. "Why don't you just ask your wife to make you something else?" he suggests. "What are you talking about?" his friend says. "I make my own lunch."
oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
