Are You A Complainer?

pos·i·tiv·i·ty [poz-i-tiv-i-tee]
–noun
1. the state of being positive: accepting the world as it is.

I have been participating in a study called "Cultivating Contentment" by Thomas Nelson. This is a great book that talks about how you can be more content with your life.  Last week the topic was "complaining" and as I talked with the group, we all agreed that for the most part people seem to either be "positive people" or "complainers".  The chapter that we read discussed reasons why people complain- as a form of small talk, because they compare themselves to others, because they lose sight what is really important in life. The book suggested everyone take home a package of Sweet Tarts and to eat one whenever we catch ourselves complaining this week.  The Sweet Tarts were to remind us to be sweet and not tart!  I consider myself to be a pretty positive person, and thought that this would be a good experiment to see how often I complain.  I caught myself only twice- once was a really big complaint!
The ways the book suggested and that our group came up with to be more positive were, first, to not compare yourself to others.  I once read that when you compare yourself to someone else, you could be comparing yourself on your worst day to them on their best day, besides you never know what someone else is going through! Second, whenever you feel like things are not going your way, instead of opening up your mouth to complain, count your blessings!  When you think about how much you are blessed with, it makes it hard to complain.  And third, things are not always perfect in this imperfect world- have a sense of humor and know that you will have good times and bad times, and hopefully in the end, we will all be in a perfect place with only perfect times!
How do you stay positive?

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