"I’m hot," you moan, as you weed the patch of dirt you’re (hopefully) nursing into a garden. "I’m dripping, look at me!" you say as you wipe your brow. "I can’t believe how hot it is today, unbelievable." You continue your lament until your mate grouses "Will you stop with the ‘hot’ already?" whereupon you kvetch under your breath because let’s face it – it’s still hot.

Or, there’s no money in your checking account. You’re down to $2.11, which is hardly enough for cat food. "I’m broke!" you cry, to all who will listen, and some who wish they didn’t have to. "I don’t know how this happened, I just put my paycheck in last Friday – where does it go?!" "I haven’t got any money, what am I going to do? Oh it’s awful. I don’t understand how this could happen, I’m broke!" And no matter how much your friends try to console you, you’re miserable, and you tell them so.

When you say "I’m hot" you’re stating a fact. When you say "I’m broke," you’re stating a fact. That is good and natural and important to do. After all, if you don’t state what’s going on with you, how are you to deal with it? However, when you say "It’s so hot in here, how awful, I’m so hot, I’m miserable, I can’t bear all this heat . . ." or "I’m broke! I don’t know how this happened, I haven’t got any money, what am I going to do? Oh it’s awful . . ." and on and on, you’re no longer stating a fact, you are complaining. You’re beating your breast, instead of resolving the situation.

For that, you see, is the definition of complaining: to beat one’s breast about something, to strike oneself in pain. The longer you complain, the longer you perpetuate the problem. You keep yourself stuck on the problem, rather than moving on to the solution. Complaining accomplishes one thing, and one thing only: it prolongs your unhappiness, and infects all those around you with a dose of misery.

Take the pain out of complaining! State your fact, and then get busy finding a solution. All that energy you’re expending complaining could be put to much better use figuring out how to feel better. You can weed earlier in the day, wear lighter clothes, a bigger hat, grab the fan and create a breeze for yourself. You can sit yourself down and figure out where you spend your money, create a budget, look for part-time work, offer your baby-sitting/car-washing/garage clean-up services around the neighborhood. There are solutions to your dilemmas just waiting for you to act upon them.

You might also take the "21 day complaint free challenge," created and supported by www.acomplaintfreeworld.org. Just think what an amazing world this could be if we all stopped complaining and invested in problem solving, not just sometimes, but all the time!

So, have at it, drop the complaining and watch your happiness soar.