This series explores how our surroundings—economic, cultural, historical, and relational—shape what we believe is possible, normal, or personal. Rather than viewing behavior as purely internal or individual, these essays highlight how context creates conditions: for willpower or fatigue, success or struggle, empathy or exclusion. By tracing the unseen influence of systems and structures, the series challenges the myth of meritocracy and reframes mental health not as a personal defect, but as a relational outcome.