JIP's Ramblings: I Can't Complain

Happy Wednesday, good people.

Oftentimes when I speak to someone and they ask how I am, I respond with, "I can't complain". The beauty of this phrase is how true it is...I really can't complain. Are there things in life that I wish were different? Sure. Am I perfectly content with my life? Not exactly. But you have to put life into perspective: when I look around and see how things actually are compared to how much worse they could be, it's extremely humbling.

It's so easy to get wrapped up in our struggles and lose sight of the larger picture: life can always be worse. If we spend our time worried about how much is wrong with our current situations, we miss out on the blessings that we currently have. How's that saying go? If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's we'd grab ours back. Yeah we would.

Speaking of everyone else, the success of others is no reason for us to complain. We often only see the good things that happen to/for other people and either don't know or ignore the struggle and hard work that it took for them to get their reward. My favorite part of the Desiderata (which everybody should read) states, "If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself". The goal here is to improve your own life, not be concerned with someone else's good fortune. Like Diddy said, "Don't be mad...be motivated"*.

*I swear to you that this will be the only time that Diddy will ever be quoted on this blog.

The reality of life is that everything will never be perfect; that's not a realistic situation. But the goal here is to have the good in life outweigh the bad, and that's largely within our control. So despite life's imperfections, you'd be hard-pressed to hear any complaining from this guy.

Cheers,

JIP