You Never Complain About Breathing

On why we complain about what we've declared we cannot change

Your lungs fill and empty thousands of times daily. The process is largely involuntary, continues whether you attend to it or not, keeps you alive through work you neither chose nor can stop. Yet you don’t spend hours discussing how unfair it is that you must breathe. You don’t gather with friends to share grievances about the burden of respiration. You don’t lie awake at night frustrated that breathing won’t simply take care of itself without your body’s constant participation.

Why not? Because you understand completely that breathing is something your body does that you have no meaningful control over. You accept it the way you accept gravity. The absence of control makes complaint pointless.

Now think about what you do complain about. The political situation. Your job. Other people’s behavior. The economy. Your family’s dysfunction. Your circumstances. These complaints can consume hours, fill conversations, occupy mental space for days.

What makes these different from breathing? You b…