The Grief of Realizing the System Was Not Build for You

You did everything right, and received nothing that you were promised. Without knowing it, the game was rigged against you the entire time.

Jul 22, 2025

The Encyclopedia of Grief is an archive of the kinds of grief that shape our lives quietly, often without anyone noticing. This season is focused on the grief that follows the broken promises of modern day life. We’re not here to fix anything. Take what you need and leave the rest.

✾ You grew up believing that the path was clear: show up, work hard, be kind, follow the rules.

No shortcuts. You just wanted a fair shot. A level playing field.

Maybe you went to school, earned the degree, submitted the job applications, smiled at the interviews. You pull and pull but the doors you were promised won’t open. The bills start to stack up. You have to move home. Every scroll on Instagram feels like a modern day torture advice, reminding you that you haven’t made it, and you probably never will.

Your dreams—the ones you thought about late at night while studying for a final—have been postponed. The worst part? You blame yourself. There must be something wrong with you.

It didn’t occur to you that the door was never going to open for you. Not without a password you were never given. Not without someone already on the inside, holding it open.

You’ve been lied to. Most of us have. The system is rigged against the majority of folks in the United States. Always has been.

The grief of watching others move through life with invisible escalators under the feet is hard to explain. It settles deep in your stomach, making you wonder why your ancestors didn’t set you up for life. Capitalism breeds hierarchy, and 99.9% of us will never have what the upper class enjoys.

I’ve grown up with immense privilege, and I still feel this grief. The grief of realizing that talent, effort, and integrity are not enough. When the playing field is slanted by inheritance, nepotism, racism, classism, ableism, and centuries of structural design, most of us never stood a chance.

This grief is economic. But it’s also spiritual.

🪟 Pause Point
This one runs deep. If you need a moment, open a quiet window into someone else’s world: WindowSwap. Then come back when your breath returns.

✾ Grief often lives in the shoulders.

The heavy weight of chronic defeat can cause folks to collapse into themselves. It might appear as the clench of your jaw as you try to stay composed—again—when someone less skilled gets chosen.

They call it meritocracy, but really’s it’s a mirror maze. Where some were handed the maps, and the rest of us are blamed for getting lost.

But still, we soldier on. We find side doors, and build ladders out of broken fence posts. We share passwords, and leave the gate open for someone else.

We are not powerless. But we are grieving.

✾ Before there were books, there was breath. And in that breath lived the story of Anansi the Spider.

He was the spider who spun stories out of thin air, slipping past power with cleverness and charm. In West Africa, his tales were passed from mouth to mouth, beside cooking fires and under moonlit skies.

The stories taught not just laughter, but strategy. Anansi didn’t fight the oppressor head-on. He outwitted them. Tricked the unjust kings, stole knowledge from the gods, and flipped the rules upside down.

When enslaved Africans were stolen and forced across the ocean, the stories followed, becoming a secret code. Reminding people that survival doesn’t always look like strength. Sometimes it looked like disguise. Delay. Like knowing when to wait, and when to weave a new path entirely.

These stories were resistance wrapped in a metaphor. And there are many modern writers and orators who continue to tell Anansi stories as a reminder that the system may be rigged against us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have personal power. Check out Philip M. Sherlock’s book Anansi the Spider-Man: Jamaican Folk Tales to read some of these stories, or read Chinua Achebe’s novels that are steeped in Igbo oral traditions.

✾ Three ways to work with this grief.

If I’m being honest, this grief rarely responds to quiet introspection alone. It doesn’t want to be meditated away or politely proceed. It wants movement! Voice! Rage against the machine!

Here’s three ways to being:

Make Space for Rage

Find somewhere you can let it all out. A rage room, a forest, your shower, or maybe an NYC side street. Somewhere you can scream and cry and let it all out. Let your body say what your mouth was never allowed to.

Gather for a Wailing Circle

I haven’t actually done this yet. This is an ancient practice that has been practiced by cultures around the world. Grief was never meant to be carried alone. Invite friends, light candles, and let yourselves cry together without needing to fix or explain. You don’t need to wait for a funeral.

Create as an Act of Refusal

Some of the coolest art is born from rage. Paint something. Throw some clay (this is my personal favorite—something about the tactile play really lets me get my anger out) and build something that reminds you of why you’re still here, even in a world wasn’t built for you.

✾ This grief runs deeper than disappointment.

It’s a slow burning rage that wakes up when you realize that meritocracy is a myth and nothing you do will ever be enough to override centuries of structural exclusion.

And still, here you are. Spinning stories like Anansi, refusing invisibility, and transforming your rage into art. This grief cannot be fixed. But when it is witness, something holy begins to stitch itself back together.

One day we will all be free. Until then, we rage on together.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart. For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you. We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become.