You Don’t Choose a Political System, You Wake Up Inside One

BY SEVANA KOPALIAN

Most people imagine political systems as distant frameworks: constitutions, elections, leaders, or laws. Something you engage in by choice, if at all. However, the reality is quieter and more profound. We do not choose the political systems we live under. Like fish born in water, we wake up inside them. Before we are able to form opinions about fairness or freedom, the system has already shaped how we think, what we consider normal, and even what dreams seem possible.

Political systems are not only governments, they are habits, ideas, infrastructures, and assumptions. The roads we drive, the schools we attend, the economic pressures that shape our work, the social norms we follow, they are all part of a political architecture we inherit, often without realizing it. Choosing to obey rules or break them, to protest or to comply, is always made within the boundaries that were already drawn. Some boundaries are visible; most are invisible.

This is why people living in the same system can experience it so differently. Two people can follow identical routines yet perceive their lives as either free or constrained. One might feel empowered by opportunity; another, restricted by invisible limits. It is not only material conditions that define this experience, but psychological ones, what seems imaginable, what is considered safe, what appears as morally acceptable. Political systems operate in the background, shaping even our imagination and perception of ourselves. 

The fact that we are born into a political system does not absolve us from responsibility, but it does explain much of why change feels difficult. The system conditions our expectations, our sense of fairness, even the ways we measure success. Discomfort, frustration, and rebellion often arrive first as personal crises before they are recognized as structural issues. Many of our “personal” problems, job scarcity, inequality, social exclusion, are designed or tolerated by systems long before we consider them political.

Recognizing that we wake up inside a system forces us to confront subtle truths. Neutrality is rarely possible, because inaction usually favors the status quo. Survival itself is shaped by political choices made before we were aware of their existence. Even deciding to “opt out” is only possible for those whose circumstances allow it. What seems personal, our choices, our failures, our routines, is often the reflection of invisible, systemic structures.

Waking up inside a political system also offers clarity and opportunity. If we see the structures around us as shaping our lives, we can learn to navigate them consciously. We can challenge assumptions, reshape habits, and imagine alternatives. The first step toward meaningful change is not merely criticizing leaders or policies, it is recognizing the invisible architecture we inhabit every day.

We do not choose the system we are born into. But once awake, we can see it, understand it, and decide whether to swim with the current or push against it. In that recognition lies the beginning of political and personal freedom.

Sevana Kopalian is a senior at Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School.