When Systems Break

On January 2nd, I got an email with the subject line: "Already struggling with your New Year's resolutions?"

Day two. Thirty-six hours into the new year and someone's marketing algorithm had already decided I'd failed.

It made me laugh at first. But then I kept thinking about it. Because if something genuinely matters to you—if you're truly connected to it—does it fall apart in two days? Real resolution doesn't require constant willpower. It emerges from connection. From knowing why something matters, not just deciding it should.

But this week showed me something about what happens when that connection is missing. Not just personally, but at every scale.

I'm writing this from Minnesota. This week has been... I don't even have adequate words for it.

I've been getting newsletters about being gentle with ourselves in times like these. About self-care and holding space and remembering to breathe. And I know the intention is good—I really do. But something about it feels incomplete to me. Like we're being told to tend our inner gardens while the house burns down.

Because how do you breathe when there's so much anxiety and fear that it feels impossible? When the air itself feels thick with rage and division?

And then I see the other response—the blog posts, the news commentary, the social media threads that are all anger and blame. The immediate rush to decide whose fault it is. The narratives that confirm what people already believed. The inability to pause even for one moment of shared humanity.

Two responses. Two ways of disconnecting. One retreats inward. One attacks outward. But both treat the problem as something "out there"—something to protect yourself from, or something to defeat.

Neither remembers we're connected.

Imagine if your body operated the way we're operating as a collective right now. Imagine trying to live using only your left hand. Or trying to feel only joy, never grief.

It sounds ridiculous, right?

Strip a system down to its "best" parts and you don't get optimization. You get failure. Try breathing with only your lungs—forgetting you need a heart to move that oxygen anywhere, blood to carry it, a brain to regulate it all, and some mysterious integration that makes the whole thing work.

And yet somehow we've convinced ourselves that our lives, our communities, our way of being together can operate differently. That we can be isolated parts—perfecting ourselves, defending our positions, fighting for dominance—and still function as something whole.

We can't.

I've watched people choose their fragment this week. Choose the certainty of being right over the discomfort of being whole. Choose the tribe that confirms what they already believe. And I understand the appeal—there's safety in that. Being a piece is simpler than being part of something whole. You know your edges. You know who's in and who's out.

But pieces can't see beyond their own boundaries. They're too focused on their own function, their own role, their own survival to remember they're part of something larger.

Wholeness isn't optional. We literally cannot function—individually or collectively—as isolated parts.

So what do we do with this? I don't have a five-step plan. I don't have a resolution you can make on Day 3 that will hold by Day 4.

But I keep coming back to this: What if the work isn't about being gentle with ourselves while the world fractures? And it's not about fixing "them" or winning arguments or being right?

What if the work is simply remembering—in our own lives, in our small daily choices—what it feels like to operate as whole systems?

To extend a hand instead of pointing a finger. To ask a question instead of defending a position. To notice when we're choosing our fragment over the discomfort of connection. To breathe—actually breathe—with our whole selves, not just the parts we're comfortable showing.

This isn't about fixing everything. It's about remembering we're connected. That wholeness isn't optional. That we literally cannot function—individually or collectively—as isolated parts.

And maybe, if enough of us remember that, something shifts.

Not because we posted the right thing or won the right argument or convinced the right people.

But because we stopped operating like pieces and started showing up as whole.

If this resonates, I'd be grateful if you'd share it. I think we need more conversations like this..

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🌿If you're finding this season particularly heavy, I've written before about navigating connection during difficult times.

🌿If you're drawn to stories about how individual acts can create collective light, this reflection about an unexpected evening in Paris might resonate.