Who Told You That?

When I was in high school, I tried to change the entire school schedule.

Seven periods a day felt insane to me.

Why were we sitting through hours of information we’d never use?

I proposed something closer to a university model - fewer subjects, ones you actually chose, longer blocks to go deeper.

They voted no. Nothing changed.

Which, in hindsight, is kind of the point.

Systems don’t resist change because the idea is bad.

They resist because they were built for a different version of reality - and they’re slow to admit that version is gone.

—

Now zoom out.

Forty years later, the thing I was pushing against is cracking anyway.

The “stable job” isn’t stable.

Layoffs aren’t a surprise anymore; they’re part of the agreement.

So people adapt.

Freelancing. Contracting. Piecing together income streams that didn’t really exist a generation ago.

Education is shifting too.

AI stepping in. Personalized learning.

Two hours of actual academics, and then… life skills. Communication. Money. Creativity.

Which are the things we really need to learn anyway.

Family structures? Same story.

Open relationships. Co-parenting. Solo parents by choice.

Kids staying home longer. Launching later.

And we’re calling it failure.

Because the old map says you should be somewhere else by now.

But the map might be outdated.

—

When systems change, it doesn’t just rearrange logistics.

It destabilizes identity.

So what you feel isn’t just disruption.

It’s grief. Fear. Disorientation.

Your nervous system trying to make sense of a world that no longer matches the rules it was trained on.

Everything feels so charged right now.

Not because everything is broken -

but because the frameworks themselves are breaking.

—

And underneath all of that

is something else.

Permission.

To question the job.

The relationship.

The timeline you thought you had to follow.

Not just externally.

Internally.

The beliefs you’ve been carrying like facts.

That you have to perform to belong.

That if you shine too bright, someone will cut you down.

That a ring on your finger will save your life.

That there’s one version of a life that “works.”

That if you do everything right, you’ll get what you’re supposed to want.

—

Those aren’t facts.

They’re inherited frameworks.

Who says we have to keep them?

Photo: Harmony Korine