Take Up Your Folding Chair

​The thing about complaining is that it's habit-forming. And the thing about a complaining habit? If you do it long enough, you can begin to feel like you're making a contribution when you're not.

Most people complain about things they want changed. Almost all chronic complaining changes nothing.

Seth Godin says, "The best way to complain is to make things better." I think that's a great litmus test for our potential complaints—is this going to make something better?

I also acknowledge that some people complain simply to complain, to let off steam, to signal belonging to a particular group, or maybe to hide from their own fears or concerns. I understand all of that. But I'm writing to folks who think complaining is a change agent.

It is Black History Month. This month, we recognize brothers, sisters, and movements that built fights to make things better—fights that transcended the misconception that change can be won by complaining.

I love the story of Shirley Chisholm, born in 1924 to immigrant parents from Barbados and Guyana. Chisholm didn't just complain about the barriers she faced as a Black woman in America—she shattered them.

In 1964, after years of deep community service in her Brooklyn neighborhood, Chisholm was elected to the New York State Assembly, becoming only the second African American woman to serve in that capacity.

Then, in 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Chisholm gained a reputation for her boldness (which is maybe the opposite of complaining) and was famously quoted as saying, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

Not to be limited by where she could take that folding chair, in 1972, Chisholm became the first Black woman to run for a major party's presidential nomination. Her campaign slogan?

Unbought and Unbossed.

Chisholm faced what felt like unbeatable odds in her run for the nomination. She had no support from white politicians and very little from black male leaders. Yet—she ran anyway. She didn’t complain about being an underdog. She just kept showing up with her folding chair.

Chisholm didn’t win the nomination, but she wasn’t done.

She went on to finish seven terms in Congress before retiring in 1983. From there, she became a professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, teaching politics and women’s studies. She mentored young students, especially women and people of color, encouraging them to engage in politics and public service.

Later in life, Chisholm reflected, “I want to be remembered as a woman who dared to be a catalyst for change.”

There is nothing daring about complaining. It takes far more energy than boldness to complain—and that energy is often an energy-suck for people looking for spaces to fuel their courage to fight and make things better.

There will always be reasons to believe there is no seat at the table for us. There will always be reasons and opportunities to complain about that.

Or—we can see it as the best reason to pick up a folding chair.

Fixing things never happens by complaining that things are broken. Fixing things always happens when people like Shirley Chisholm set aside complaining in favor of making something better.

For Chisholm, that change started in her Brooklyn neighborhood as a young black woman and ended with her being posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom a decade after her death.

Unbought.

Unbossed.