Fr. RIchard OMOLADE

Life is a complex experience and we do not always have control of things. Even the contours and shapes of our life quite often depend on inputs from others. These, they may do lovingly or grudgingly. Hence, life may be smooth or rugged for us. So, how do we cope with the vicissitudes of life?

We can see these situations and experiences as steppingstones, or we can see them as stumbling blocks. We can embrace them as opportunities for new and enabling experiences or see them as debilitating factors and complain on end about them. One thing is certain, life will always not favour us, but our response to it depends entirely on us and we can change how we view the world and be influential in shaping how the world sees us.

Complaining is an expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something. It is often an emotional state of being that may affect the whole person because it sometimes manifests itself in grief and pain or discontent or dissatisfaction. There is no gainsaying the fact that too much complaining can worsen someone’s mood, the situation often makes a person feel helpless and ultimately, this can lead to a negative outlook on life. Complaining should be distinguished from a logical critique of a situation or a review of one’s life which is required of all of us at certain point in our life. A critical review of life is an examination of our life, its goal and what is currently happening to us, if these are likely to lead to accomplishment of goals or not. This is a positive approach, but when our focus is on how bad things are, then one is not likely to come up with proper and logical review and solutions will be hard to come by.

Complaining creates a climate of ill feeling and negativity, ill feelings rob people of the positive energy they need to explore new and better options that may bring about the resolution of a problem. Complaining is a negative habit and culture that robs us of the opportunity to focus more on problem solving and achieving our goals.

Nigerians complain a lot, and many believe the problem is never them, but someone else. This therefore makes us to be too critical of others, while we tolerate our own inadequacies, even when we may be worse than the people we criticize or complain about. We complain about the economy and yet unwilling to try new things. Our salaries are never enough but we refrain from cultivating other side hustles.

The president is tagged clueless, but we are unable to come up with viable solutions to the problems in the land. The Church is not effective, but we forget that we are the Church. Mass is dull but we forget to remember that we failed to go to practice to plan things. The Church is dirty, but we would not volunteer to go and join others to clean the worship place. We don’t know what God is doing but we refuse to create an enabling atmosphere for God to communicate with us. Even when God is making frantic efforts to get our attention, we are distracted by our gadgets, and noise from our day-to-day life.  We may continue to complain, but nothing is going to change unless we do something about it. Without intentionality, our life remains stuck in the mud of complain, when the whole world lay in front of us waiting to be explored and conquered.

Constant complaining is bad, negative, and toxic and not good for anyone. We must therefore do our possible best to overcome it.  If you are perceived to complain too much, then you will be seen as part of the problem and not the solution. This will damage anyone’s credibility and should be avoided. There is no problem that cannot be overcome. When the crowd followed Jesus and had stayed with him for long, he wanted the disciples to give them food, but they saw the huge crowd and no solution. Jesus told them to take the initiative instead of avoiding the challenge by sending the crowd away. “Where there is a will, there is a way.” If we put our best effort on it, we will accomplish something as opposed to not trying. The bird that complains of the height will never be able to fly, unless it ventures out. Indeed, champions don’t spend their time complaining, they are too busy getting better. Complaining robs us of life’s vital energy and anyone desirous of success must not succumb to the draining effect of complaining. The energy we waste complaining should be directed to something positive and relevant to the flourishing of life.

For now, let us all resolve to focus on something positive. The challenges of life will still be there, the problems will still gnaw at us, and there will still be many people around us whom we consider of no good to us. If we want better for ourselves, and our world, we must move past the negative narrative and challenge ourselves to see them as opportunities for growth, for change, for success. I have chosen the path of growth and wholeness, complaining is too much a burden to bear. What about you?