What’s the Point in Moaning?

At the end of last year I started to reflect on how I spent my time. I don’t mean the school run, working, blogging and housework. I mean the frame of mind that I was in, whether I felt positive, negative, happy or sad. I realised just before the New Year that I would spend time moaning about things and getting wound up about things that either didn’t effect me or that I just couldn’t change.

I think stereotypically British people moan a lot. It’s a way of life, a habit and a pastime. It’s something we do almost subconsciously, without even really realising we are doing it – just moaning for moanings sake.

But as well as writing a Bucket List at the start of the year I decided to make a change. I decided to let things go over my head, not to moan about things generally and only to spend any time thinking about things that were negative if I could in some way possibly change them.

Do you find yourself moaning? I remember at the end of last year moaning that the weather was bad, that London was too busy, that the traffic was bad… The list goes on. I can’t change these things – no-one can – so why bother wasting our energy moaning about them?

Then there are things that I moaned about that could have been fixed in some way – slow service in a restaurant, no-one making a cup of tea at work, so much washing that needed doing and the car needing to be filled with petrol.

All these things I remember getting frustrated at and having a little huff and puff over them. But now looking back these things make me smile. Because this year things are going to change.

If I get bad service in a restaurant I’ll be motioning to a waiter, I will be complaining politely and that service will have to improve. If no-one makes a cup of tea I’ll go and make one myself – for everyone. If our washing is piling up at home I’ll make an effort to put a load on every day and if the car needs filling with petrol I’ll just leave home ten minutes earlier to fill it up.

We all get wrapped up in the little negatives in life, in the things we can’t change and the things that get under our skin for no reason at all. Does it really matter if childless people park in the parent and child spaces? You know there’s going to be a queue in the post office, is there any point in thinking stabby thoughts whilst you stand in the queue? The weather’s pants, we know that. It’s cold and dark and miserable – we know that too.

So next time you have moany thoughts about things that you can’t change or things that just don’t effect you, smile and move on. It doesn’t effect you. You can’t change it. So what’s the point in wasting energy on it?

Since I have started letting things go over my head, and not worrying about too much at all I am so much happier and so less weighted down by the minor things in everyday life. It’s so nice to think about the good in every day, focus on the positives and even spend the time I used to be moaning helping someone else instead.

So, really, what’s the point in moaning?