I tell people all the time, the status quo is so untenable to

Hear the words of Michael Tubbs, spoken with the fire of one unwilling to bow before mediocrity: “I tell people all the time, the status quo is so untenable to me. Like, literally, I have no patience for it.” These are not idle words, but the cry of a spirit that cannot endure complacency. For the status quo, the comfortable stagnation of society, is the enemy of progress. It whispers that things are “good enough,” even as injustice festers, even as inequality persists, even as voices go unheard. Tubbs declares war on this illusion, proclaiming that he cannot wait, he cannot sit still, he cannot cloak himself in false patience while suffering continues.

The ancients, too, knew that to accept the status quo unchallenged is to invite decay. When Rome became drunk on its own power, resting on past victories, corruption spread like rot, and the empire fell not by enemies at its gates, but by complacency within. The prophets of Israel railed against kings who grew rich while the poor starved, calling them to cast off the weight of hypocrisy and embrace justice. In every age, the greatest downfall of nations and men has not been failure, but the quiet, deadly embrace of “things as they are.” Tubbs joins this lineage, lifting his voice to shatter the chains of passive acceptance.

Consider the tale of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, he refused to accept that his chains were inevitable, that the status quo of bondage was permanent. He taught himself to read, to write, to think, and eventually to speak with such power that he shook the conscience of a nation. Had he been “patient,” slavery might have endured far longer. But he, like Tubbs, found the existing order untenable, and because of this refusal, change came. This story is a mirror: progress is born when patience with injustice ends.

The status quo is seductive because it promises ease. It asks for nothing but silence. It tells us: “Do not disturb, do not resist, do not dream beyond what is.” Yet every great reformer has recognized its danger. Martin Luther King Jr. warned against the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” urging his people not to wait endlessly for freedom. Tubbs echoes this truth: when lives are at stake, when futures are stolen by poverty or neglect, there is no room for patience. To wait is to consent; to endure the untenable is to betray the generations yet unborn.

But Tubbs’s words are not only defiance—they are also hope. To call the present untenable is to believe in a better tomorrow. His impatience is not reckless, but righteous: the impatience of the gardener who refuses to let weeds choke the soil, the impatience of the healer who will not delay treatment for the wounded, the impatience of the leader who sees that delay is death. His cry is a reminder that urgency, when guided by justice, is not a weakness but a strength.

The lesson for us is clear: do not make peace with stagnation. If you see injustice, if you encounter inequality, do not soothe yourself with false patience. Ask yourself: is this world as it is worthy of being left to our children? If the answer is no, then act. For history honors not those who waited politely, but those who dared to disrupt, who declared the status quo unbearable, and who labored to create something better.

Practical wisdom follows. In your own life, look at the routines, the systems, the habits that no longer serve justice, love, or growth. Do not tolerate them merely because they are familiar. Be bold enough to name them untenable, and brave enough to change them. Seek progress in your community, your work, your relationships—wherever complacency has taken root. And when others tell you to “be patient,” remember Tubbs’s truth: there are seasons when patience is betrayal, and action is salvation.

Thus, let Tubbs’s words echo like a trumpet: the status quo is not sacred; it is clay, to be broken and remade. Refuse to wait while injustice thrives. Refuse to be lulled by complacency. For the world belongs not to those who endure the untenable, but to those who rise, who act, and who shape a future worthy of the human spirit.