By
My brother had a life most people would complain about.
Yet I never heard him complain—not once in 45 years.
When childhood poverty forced us to sleep on the floor,
he didn’t express annoyance or dissatisfaction.
When our electricity got cut off in the ’90s,
he still laughed in the candlelit dark.
When his factory shuttered during the lockdowns,
he simply moved on to other work without protest or bitterness.
My brother didn’t avoid grievances because he was weak.
On the contrary, he was strong enough not to carry them.
Perhaps that’s why he seemed so contented.
The final text message I received from him captured it perfectly:
“Everything going great here. No complaints.”
Then there’s me.
I find myself complaining with some frequency. Rarely aloud, but the voice in my head has many opinions about the events of the world.
This coffee is too hot.
My stupid knee hurts.
Damn, it’s raining again.
If he were still here, my brother would probably tell me:
Your complaints point toward your clinging.
He would show me—with actions, not words—that every complaint is a signpost pointing toward an expectation I’m clinging to, or an experience I’m unwilling to accept. And sometimes, if I’m honest, my complaints are a whimpering request to be pitied for my suffering.
Ouch.
Looking back, my brother expected little, accepted the things he could not change, and never asked anyone to feel sorry for him.
He knew intuitively what I’m only now learning:
Complaints don’t just express unhappiness; they prolong it.
“Everything going great here. No complaints.”
Maybe moving on starts there.
—JFM
P.S. I recently wrote a short remembrance of my brother: Jerome Was a Simple Man.
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