Day 9: Close Calls, but...

...I made it through a fifth day without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. But it wasn't easy.

When the wife comes home at night, I have a habit of "downloading" her on all the new information I've received during the day and all the things that happened at the store. For example, as we left the store on Monday night, I asked her if she had turned on the heat. As we left, I told her I had felt a blast of heat while passing the furnace, but she assured me she had only nudged the thermostat to keep the AC from running.

It turns out that an employee had reversed the settings from cool to heat, so Ann's frugal measure turned into a more costly one, probably much to the delight of Vectren. Ann made a brief stop at the store this morning and was hit with an oven blast of heat at about 80 degrees. Fortunately, she hit the kill switch so that when I arrived it was only a bit toasty.

But that's not a complaint. It's just the type of thing that we talk about and my prior inattention to "ear pollution" would have surely turned that discussion into a gripe. With my newly heightened awareness of the impact of my words, though, I can discuss such things without being such a grump.

Ann remarked that she has been pleasantly surprised at how "calm" I have been over the past several days. I'm hoping she'll contribute a post sometime this week, sharing with us what it's like to watch what we hope is a transformation.

Do you think this "Complaint Free World" concept can spread? Wouldn't it make life in Southern Indiana a lot more pleasant if we all were sensitive to how often we complain?

I honestly believe that the next few days will be the hardest. I promise to shoot straight with you. From everything author Will Bowen tells us in his new book, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to go 21 straight days at this early stage. And I promise to raise the bar, too.