Is a Broken System Breaking You?

“One of the most painful parts about functioning in a broken system is the persuasive illusion that it is you who is broken,” wrote Melissa Febos in a Poets & Writers magazine essay.

Febos, a former addict and sex worker and author of the memoir Whip Smart: The True Story of a Secret Life, became a commercial success and visiting academic after the publication of her book. But, at the time, “…I wasn’t writing and was still broke,” she wrote.

Only later did Febos realize she was experiencing a privileged version of her sex-worker days, where, “If you aren’t winning, you must not be working hard enough.”

That is the power of a sophisticated social system: it transfers the blame psychologically from the system to the individual. Shame, guilt and fear become its tools, enabling an internal oppression that is complete and self-perpetuating.

The challenge then is to refuse to own the story the system is telling and instead name it, change it, leave it, or create a new one.

M. Carolyn Miller, MA, designs narrative- and game-based learning. She also writes and speaks about the power of story in our lives and world. www.cultureshape.com

Photo Credit: “Order and Disorder” by Petras Gagilas is licensed under CC BY 2.0.