There may be tens of thousands of people in and around Washington who have tried to make the world a better place by the simple act of not complaining.
Last fall, Rev. Sylvia Sumter of Unity of Washington ordered 500 purple rubber bracelets from Will Bowen, a minister who’s stoked a worldwide campaign to stop complaining. Those went quickly and with Bowen’s recent visit to the District, she expects the movement to grow.
“The No. 1 reason people complain is to avoid taking action,” Bowen said in a sermon last Sunday at Unity during a weeklong visit to Washington. Not complaining helps people focus on positive change, he said.
Bowen, the minister of Christ Church Unity in Kansas City, Mo., introduced the bracelets to his own congregation two years ago, but appearances on Oprah and wide media coverage propelled his message to 5 million quitters in 80 countries as of this week.
Switch the bracelet to your other wrist whenever you catch yourself complaining, he explains, challenging new quitters to keep the bracelet on the same wrist for 21 straight days, the amount of time psychologists say it takes to break habits.
Before his visit, Bowen’s anti-complaining organization, acomplaintfreeworld.org, sent e-mails announcing his Washington visit to district residents who had ordered bracelets. “There were 8,978,” Bowen said. And the average customer orders 11 bracelets, so there could be as many as 100,000 purple bracelets in town, he said.
“He’s a voice that is tapping into the critical mass,” said Grady Poulard, a Unity congregant who has a bracelet, but describes himself as “naturally complaint-free.”
“Washington is a big no-complaining city,” Bowen said.
Washingtonians have requested aboutthree times as many bracelets as people from Houston.
But like any bad habit, quitting isn’t easy. Joyce Gray, one of the 220 locals who gathered to watch Bowen speak at Unity last Sunday, has tried out the bracelet, but she’s taking a break now. “I think a lot of people here are constantly changing wrists. Eventually it did get a little better,” she said. It took Bowen himself three months to achieve 21 complaint-free days.
Bowen says he still complains sometimes.
Last Friday, he woke up in his Washington hotel and complained to his wife about a water bottle blocking his view of the alarm clock, he said as a joke.
