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Most Overused Word in 2022: Systemic

Easy to say and can be used with anything to make it sound very important and unsolvable. So easy to blame a ‘system’ created by unknowable and unnameable people. No specific people are to blame. It was simply everyone.

There are no specific, exact rules created by particularly people at an exact time. But it is a great way to note something is a problem and therefore everything has to be burned to the ground or torn down because everything is wrong, though undefinable.

Would you tear down a house, because something was beeping? Or because the heating wasn’t working how you thought it should? Or would you look around, listen, test, do research, call an expert, get a second opinion, and try to pinpoint precisely what the exact issue was so you can deal with it or learn why it actually isn’t the issue you think it is.

But that takes time, interest, precision, testing, conversation, engagement and possibly being able to see things from different perspectives. You might even feel compelled to adjust how you see the world within this context.

That all sounds like a lot of work. So today, when you feel you’ve found something huge and unfortunate, it’s much easier to simply blame the system and powerfully articulate that it’s a systemic issue.

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