This weekend I attempted to complete the challenge from A Complaint Free World (http://tinyurl.com/65yey8).

I didn’t do so well. A couple of things I learned:
1) My thoughts are much more negative than I realized.
2) Health and energy matters. Lack of sleep made me much more negative.
3) If I practiced this until I could go 21 days without complaining, I think my brain’s wiring would change considerably.

I you’ve tried this challenge – especially if you’ve been successful for 21 days – I would love to hear insights, tips, and tricks for success. I think I’ll take this up in the new year and go for real.

For more crazy lifestyle experiments, follow along at http://blog.neverthesamerivertwice.com/.

This weekend I’ve decided to take the challenge laid out in A Complaint Free World (http://tinyurl.com/65yey8). Here’s the short version:
1) wear a bracelet or rubber band on your wrist
2) don’t complain, gossip or criticize
3) if you break rule #2, move the bracelet to your other wrist

Tim Ferris reported his results here: http://tinyurl.com/yvadjk.

Hunter Nuttal wrote a great series of posts here: http://tinyurl.com/6av5ll

Should be interesting. I’ll let you know how it goes on Monday.

Technically I failed in my assignment of connecting with an old friend by phone. I called, but didn’t get any callbacks. However, I think in the larger sense this challenge was successful because it gave me the inspiration to rethink my introverted ways and focus more on connecting with others.

Did you follow along with this experiment? Share your experience here or at http://blog.neverthesamerivertwice.com/.

I’ve had a rough week. Normally, I would go home and veg in front of the TV or with a book, but I’ve seen some research on happiness that suggests that connecting with friends and family is a better solution to stress.

This weekend I’m going to try to call a couple of friends that I haven’t seen or talked to in a while. If you’re feeling down and disconnected, why not try it yourself.

Follow this experiment at http://blog.neverthesamerivertwice.com/

This weekend I went on a media fast. I didn’t watch the news, read the paper, or talk about current events. Instead, I connected with some good friends that I haven’t seen in a while.

Predictably, this was much more fun than the news, so what do I do going forward?
1) No more news at least until after the election. I have all of the information I need to cast my votes at this point.
2) Find other ways to be engaged in my community. Doing is so much more important than watching.
3) (I thought of this one after I finished the recording.) Schedule more time to get out and connect with real people. I often reserve the weekends for “rest” but this isn’t very satisfying. I need to find ways to reach out more and connect in person, not on the ‘net.

What do all of you think about this? Do you think it’s irresponsible to stop paying attention to the news this close to an election? Do you find it helpful to watch CNBC? Feel free to reply to this Utter, or comment at http://blog.neverthesamerivertwice.com/.