FOR LENT, AN EFFORT TO ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

The Boston Globe

BEVERLY BECKHAM

The e-mail's subject was "Nice thoughts for the start of Lent," so I opened it and read it, and because I thought it was worth rereading, I printed it and hung it on my bulletin board.

It's a "give up" list, but it's not full of the usual give-ups: cookies, cake, ice cream, candy, wine. This list is about behavior, about giving up complaining, pessimism, worry, negativism, and gloom.

Having given up all things delicious, including Dunkin' Donuts sugar-coated jelly sticks and Brigham's chocolate chip ice cream, many times before, I figured that "to give up gloom and enjoy the beauty that is all around" would be a piece of cake, so to speak.

Except that I can't get past the first item on the list: "Give up complaining. Focus on gratitude."

Here's the problem: What defines complaining? Is saying there's a problem with not complaining a complaint? Is a statement of fact a complaint? "I asked for plain Munchkins and these are chocolate."

Is an observation a complaint? "Hard to believe that we have 400 television stations and there's nothing to watch on TV." Is going back to the store that sold you slippery tile for your bathroom floor when you specifically asked for the least slippery tile and looking for someone to be accountable a complaint?

Is complaining sometimes warranted? And when? And when does a complaint become a whine?

The other day I was walking with a friend when my right foot started to ache. I said, "Ow, my foot hurts," sat down on a wall, rubbed it, and adjusted my sock.

Two minutes later, I said "Ow!" again, followed by "My foot is really killing me."

I consider this not a complaint, but information a little exaggerated, yes, but kind of like breaking news. My foot hurts a little. Now it hurts a lot. Tune in at 11 for further details.

But I can see how this could be construed as a complaint.

This same friend and I met for breakfast the next morning.

She ordered an omelet and home fries and I ordered bacon, eggs, and toast. Her omelet and fries came together. My bacon and eggs came minus the toast.

"I'll be right back," the waitress said, smiling, but she didn't come right back.

"I wish I had my toast," I said out loud to my friend.

I knew right then that I should have given up ice cream.

When I was a child, I gave up chocolate every Lent, and when you're a kid, Lent feels longer than 40 days. I kept a dozen dime-store chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs in an egg carton on my bed stand and every night I would open the box and inhale temptation. Come Easter morning, there was more waiting to be done, because back then you had to fast from midnight until after you took Communion at Easter Mass.. So it was only after noon on Easter Day that I could finally devour the chocolate eggs. Even now, decades later, the finest chocolates don't taste nearly as sweet as those chocolate;ate covered marshmallows did..

It was hard not to eat chocolate for 40 days. Very hard. But it was easy, too, because everyone knows exactly what chocolate is.

But a complaint?

"It's freezing in here."

"I'm hungry."

"You're late."

Fact? Complaint? Or idle chatter?

My friend Anne insists it's repetition that turns facts into complaints; saying "I'm hungry" once is OK, but repeating it every five minutes is not. And tone of voice is a factor, too.

So, if you complain in a whisper, does it count? And if you complain and no one hears you, is this OK, too? What about when you yell at the computer, "Come on! Come on! What's taking so long?" Or at the TV, "That was the dumbest show ever!" Or when you're alone in the car and you yell at another driver?

What is the goal of not complaining? Not to be heard complaining? Or to be grateful for all the things that you would normally complain about?

"I remember when we were little and you gave up chocolate, all you did was complain," my friend Rosemary tells me when she calls to make a date for dinner. "I'm glad you've given up complaining instead of chocolate, because now I won't have to listen to you," she said.

She is complaining about me. I hear this. But I don't tell her. I'm looking at my list and focusing on gratitude.