Today was kind of a gimme for not complaining because I was at home sick and had pretty much zero interaction with any sort of sentient human. Or non-sentient, for that matter.
There was a golden opportunity to break my streak when I asked Jeff how his day was when he got home, but after an initial complaint he made a conscious effort to switch over to something positive instead. This was both thoughtful and practical, because up to that point I was largely just standing there like a statue, mute and unable to respond. I didn’t want to affirm his complaint, but neither did I want to just stand there like a lump staring at him (one of my favorite examples from the book A Complaint Free World is the family that went in on the challenge and found themselves sitting around the dinner table as if they all had Cones of Silence on them because they were unable to speak to each other. This changed, eventually, of course, but the early days were a vivid illustration of how dinner time was also venting time).
So far I haven’t missed complaining much. I already feel my brain trying to switch over more to problem-solving mode. Fortunately I have a lot of problems to solve to keep it occupied.
