How to Navigate Life’s Overlapping Systems

Key points

Social science reveals we exist in overlapping systems that experience political and economic change unevenly.

Locus of control helps explain the tension between our personal agency and external forces.

Coping research shows that resilience grows by focusing agency on the smallest effective scale.

Strong, empathetic relationships are a key tool for social learning and bringing shared meaning.

This post is in response to Why Does Every Global Event Feel Like a Crisis? By Ian MacRae

Human lives are never lived in isolation. Each of us exists within overlapping systems of families, communities, workplaces, nations, and increasingly, global networks of geographically distributed organizations and relationships. The layers interlock unevenly. A financial crisis, a new techn