Purple means complaints stop here
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
In the darkest hour of her life, real estate agent Arnie Renda made the soul-saving decision to stop complaining.
“My mother died, my husband died, the market was crashing,” Renda says of 2008, “and I was like Teflon. I let it roll off me.”
She’d read a little book, A Complaint Free World, written by Missouri pastor Will Bowen, which talked about the negativity of complaining.
It urged people to keep track of how much they complain by moving a little purple wristband from arm to arm each time they groused.
“Life is better without complaining in spite of everything that has happened to me,” says Renda. “I feel so good.”
With more than 100,000 books sold in North America and many more $1 wristbands, the stop-complaining prophet has hit a nerve with people of all walks of life. What started as a Sunday morning sermon has blossomed into a movement embraced by schools, workplaces and individuals who see the wisdom of muting their inner critic.
People who try it admit they are shocked to find out how much they complain and how hard it is to break the habit. But there’s also surprise at the benefits ditching the bitching brings to their lives.