3 Reasons to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying Your Life Today
Here’s why what you’ve been told about the ‘good life’ is probably wrong
How often do you complain about the little things in life that annoy you? If you’re anything like me, it’s a lot. There are just so many irritations!
All the stairs you have to walk up on any given day; having to go to the gym to stop your middle from sagging; dealing with the wrinkles that keep appearing on your face, your droopy, slightly dodgy knees, and the grumpy teens at home. Not to mention having to plough through the never-ending stuff piling onto your work to-do list each day. Oh, and having to make dinner every day? Don’t get me started.
There’s got to be an app for that. Or a VA. Or AI. Or something.
Really, why do these things always happen to me? Why?
It’s tiring just thinking about it all, isn’t it? So many things to irritate you daily. So many seemingly unnecessary things getting in the way of you actually enjoying your life.
Life would be so much better if not for them, yes? Maybe, you like me, have thought, ‘Surely, if I just had enough money I could buy back those parts of my life and outsource/delete/make better the bits that irritate me’?
But, and go with me here, what if they aren’t the things that get in the way of you living your life?
What if they are, in fact, the best bits of your life?
Wait, what?
What if we’ve got this whole striving-for-more thing wrong?
Now before you jump in and think ‘No, that’s not what I want for my life. I’m aiming for something grand; something soooo much better than this’, let me stop you right there. Sure a lot of us are aiming for something grander than what we have right this minute. More money, more things, more love, more fame, more friends, more time, less flab, less wrinkles, less work, less irritation. I get it. I used to be exactly like that.
We think, if I could just be more productive, I could earn more money. If I could earn more money, I could own more stuff. If I could just own… insert your sought-after-thing here, I could live the life I’ve always wanted.
We’re always in pursuit of the next, of the better.
Yep, me too. I was always running to the next thing and the next — barely a breath in between. Trying to achieve, more, better, or different. What I had at any given moment was never quite enough.
Until the morning after Mother’s Day.
I was grumpy that Mother’s Day hadn’t gone the way I thought it should have. Or rather, that I hadn’t been celebrated like the Queen I should be celebrated as (yep, that’s a lot of shoulds right there). I was so peeved, so unsatisfied, despite having so much good stuff going on in my life, that the universe saw fit to teach me some lessons in the basics of gratitude.
Lesson 1: The tiny things ARE the biggest things
Whilst I’d like to say this was a big, swift lesson that I learned quickly, let’s just say I was a stubborn cow and it took me rather a while to learn it.
So all those complaints? In an instant, they were gone. Was it a miracle?
No. It was me lying on my back strapped to a spine board after being hit by a car, wondering if this was it for me. Suddenly my wrinkles weren’t really an issue because I just might not make it through another day.
A little later in the day — still immobilised, all those stairs? Yeah, they were the least of my problems because whilst I might survive, I wondered if was going to be able to use my legs again.
In the days that followed, my oh-so-important to-do list suddenly shrank to zero. Maybe, I hoped, into temporary hibernation. But over the ensuing years, it totally shrank into the background; the only tasks on the list being the endless doctors’ appointments and the very basic physical therapy exercises. And when I say basic, I mean lie on your stomach, try to bend your knee, and raise your ankle off the table — not take a spin class.
And the grumpy teens? Gosh, I was happy to see them when I got out of the hospital — grumpy or not. I was alive. Since then, there have been many more grumpy moments — they’re teens what can I say? But that I get to continue watching them be grumpy, then right themselves and get on with their lives, all the while continuing to grow up and turn into good humans? That’s the best thing ever. Grumpy teens? Yeah, baby!
I get to see more (and more) wrinkles on my face, which I’m not thrilled with, but they too, I’ve discovered, are a profound privilege. And my saggy middle that sagged more than ever whilst I was recovering, big sigh. BUT… my recovery means that I now get to go to the gym and work my body out. I can finally get my leg up and over as I pedal on the exercise bike (something that took 4 years to be able to do).
And I can lift a bit of weight too. Yay, body!!
I remember a time in the wee small hours of the morning, after yet another surgery. The medical staff were very concerned about my ability to see out the day because I was close to going into shock from blood loss. My body, hooked up to all the machines that go beep, was so weak, the only thing I could manage was finger dancing — a good playlist and a finger from each hand swaying in time, in an effort to raise my blood pressure. It worked.
Still here. Yay for fingers!
Lesson 2: The ‘big’ things you strive for become irrelevant
When the poo really hits the fan, it’s not the big stuff that matters. Nope, it doesn’t count; not at all. The swanky titles on my CV? Nope. The salary band I finally made it into? No. The nice suits and shoes? Ha! The progress I’d made on my PhD? Bahahahaha. Nah. The beach condo? Sadly, no, couldn’t get there any longer. My fabbo social media profile? God, no. The frequent flyer status? Ugh! My beloved car? Big sigh. Nope, not that either.
None of that mattered. At all!
All the things that I thought made me, well, me? The things that I’d aspired to for decades? Nope. I also had that very wrong. They’re all the things that disappear in a heartbeat and you very suddenly figure out never really mattered in the first place.
I lived for the first year almost exclusively in pyjamas and slippers. And when I could/had to leave the house, it was in grungy sneakers that I could slip on. The title, earning capacity, Ph.D., along with the actual job itself, disappeared into oblivion — because I couldn’t cross a road. Plus I had PTSD, so a lot of anything work-related was a non-starter for years.
And my beloved little car was manual/stick, I couldn’t drive because I couldn’t lift my leg to push the clutch in anymore.
Oh, and as for the hordes of followers on social — well we all know how that goes when suddenly you’re no longer out and about.
No one wanted my life anymore, except for me. I desperately clung to what was left of my life, in all its non-sexy glory.
Lesson 3: The glamorous parts of life you strive for are a lie
By far the biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way in all of this, is that everything I thought I wanted; everything that I’d worked my butt off for; that I’d aspired to? None of that outer stuff mattered one fraction of an iota.
If I could just… then I will … — is a lie. A giant, bald-faced lie.
If I’m honest, this is the bit that did my head in most of all. Even five years later, I still have to check myself on this regularly. It’s entirely too easy to get drawn back in; caught up chasing the things that look like they ‘should’ deliver meaning, but don’t really.
What I’ve learned (slowly) is that they’re merely a smoke screen to distract you from what’s really important in your life. To make you more reliant on instant dopamine hits delivered by buying more stuff and endless scrolling.
What’s truly important to have a good life?
Unsurprisingly, it’s the basics.
- Your health — as much of it as you have and/or can get back. Life is so much harder without it. Please don’t ever take it for granted.
- Your family and friends — Family first — both the ones you are related to by blood and the ones you adopted along the way. They are your lifeline. Friends are a little trickier in that I mean the ones you really know, in real life (IRL). You know, the ones who will stick by you in sickness and in health, your ride or dies. Everyone else is just flotsam on the scroll.
- You being you. Not doing, or having, or achieving. Just being. I know I’m being me best when I’m sharing knowledge, creating stuff — just because, lifting others up or helping them get their start/next move. Or laughing with my ride or dies. Or making those I love food. They’re what brings me joy.
Do I need funds to do any of that? Sure. But it’s nowhere near as much as I thought was required. Does anyone care about the brands I wear, drive, serve, etc.? Nah. They love me for me and I love them for them back. Best of all, I love my new, old, wrinkled, scarred body so much more now than before. It does so many amazing miraculous things, every single day, that I’d never really noticed before. Who knew?!
The takeaways:
- Focus on what really matters in your life. Everything else is clutter.
- Think about the things that often annoy you. Chances are you’ll find something truly amazing to appreciate in there when you really look.
- Really look for ways to only focus on the things that truly matter. Chances are if you’re reading this, you have enough of what you truly need right now. You ARE enough.
I wish you well.
Kristin Austin — Lover of good food, friends & cocktails. Recovering from a life-changing injury. Still learning.
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