Woman calls police to report clean house....

(click above for story)

A woman called police to report that she came home - and her house was clean. Apparently she thought someone broke in, but it turned out that a neighbor had hired a maid to come in and clean - and the housecleaners cleaned the wrong place.

Not only is this story amusing, but it reminded me of the one thing that is the biggest energy waster going - complaining. People complain every day. Mostly they complain about bad things that happen. But then, every now and then, you even hear someone complain about a good thing that's happening.

Why? Usually they don't see it as a good thing. Or, even if it is a good thing, like a clean house, they suspect someone's motives. They don't like the way it was done. They find fault in the situation.

What does this have to do with living with a disability? Everything.

If we have a negative attitude, it colors our world. It doesn't matter if we're disabled or not. We used to have a family friend who would complain no matter what food was served at dinner. The joke became that it just didn't matter what we had - nothing would be right.

We can fall into this trap of complaining very easily. Sometimes our lives are inconvenient - and with disabilities, even more so at times. It's easy to list all of the reasons why we can't do something or what's wrong with our situation.

Yet if we make the effort to be positive and stop complaining, an odd thing happens. Things become - better. Even though nothing has changed.

Complaining for the sake of complaining hurts people. It hurts the people who complain the most because it keeps them negative and trapped.

So the next time you think about complaining , stop a second and ask "Is this negativity worth it?"