My 24-Hour No-Complaint Challenge: Surprisingly Hard, Eye Opening

There are days that I wonder how I made it back home in one piece, and others where I'm so incredibly proud of what i've accomplished, but I noticed a common denominator across both of those extremes, and most of the days in between....

I complain, a lot.

I know i'm not alone in this, as I do a quick scroll through group chats, DMs, and even emails - we all do it, we send memes and GIFs that do it for us, even a simple statement can innocently turn into a complaint session.

I Created a Personal 'No Complaint Zone' — Here's What Happened

It all started in the group chat, you know, that one we all have where you worry if anything was ever leaked, everyone would be in big, BIG trouble (with work, family, other friends). In order to protect the identities of my friends, many of whom absolutely hate when I share our adventures live on the radio or in a story like this one, we're just going to call the entire collective 'the group chat.'

An early-morning text began with 'can you believe this crap, it's not even 7am' - and the complaint department officially opened for the day.

Naturally, our instincts are to not only provide a listening ear to our friends, but to one-up with our own 'you won't believe THIS one, it'll make you feel better about your situation...'

As I was driving to the radio station and talking to one of 'the group chat' members on the phone, I asked if we, as a group, complain too much?

I don't think more than any other friend group...well actually, we do find a LOT to regularly piss and moan about, don't we?

SEE ALSO: Is This The Most Beautiful Stretch of Route 9 During This Time Of Year

Can You Really Go a Day Without Complaining? I Tried It

The two of us decided to go 24-hours complaint free, or at least try to anyway, and let me tell you, it was HARD. Average parts of your every-day conversation can truly be analyzed as complaints:

• Man, this rain is never ending...
• I have no idea what to feed these kids for dinner!
• I'm going to be late getting to you, this traffic is the worst, and people are driving crazy!!!

All of those, simple statements, can be classified as complaints, right? Now these are just scratch the surface examples, outside of the 'girllll, I need to vent about this crap that happened at work today....'

Was I successful in my 24-hour self imposed no complaint zone? Nope. My friend? Better than I did, but we still had to call one another out.

Is that a statement or are you b*tching?

Did it make me think before I opened my mouth, rephrase what I was about to say? Absolutely.

I have definitely been a bit more mindful about what I run to drop into the group chat, have resisted in sending a 3-minute long audio message, even how I phrase things on the radio...definitely eye opening.

How do you think you'd do with a no complaining challenge? What about the way this local pizza spot responded to complaints?