The Maladjusted
Recently I’ve wondered if I should calm down, stop being bothered about haves and have-nots, stop being fretful about the state of the world and what manner of handbasket we’re all in on this increasingly fiery road, that is perhaps paved with my good intentions. I often feel ineffectual and silly. For comfort and wisdom, I turned to the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., whose idealism and fire warms my soul.
In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Highlander Folk School’s 25th anniversary. He was addressing labor organizers and civil rights activists in one of the few places in the South where they could meet without threat of violent attacks. Highlander followed a model of education through dialogue that presumed people could come up with solutions to their own problems.
To this gathering of practical dreamers, King offered an unexpected framework. Psychologists, he said, were obsessed with the word “maladjusted,” but he suggested there were some things we should be proud to remain maladjusted to. “I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes,” he declared. “I call upon you to be maladjusted.”
King wasn’t being theoretical. He was talking to people who understood the daily, messy reality of refusing to accept systems that don’t work. He understood his work as part of a larger movement, one that stretched back through generations of people who refused to adjust to injustice.
Working in Santa Fe with caregivers, we’ve come to understand this maladjustment in our own bones. We share an inability to accept systems that hinder genuine connection. When people show up only to complete tasks, measured solely on what gets checked off, it creates disconnected care and inhibits lovingkindness.
We’ve witnessed something different: caregiving relationships filled with presence and authenticity. Like those organizers at Highlander, we had faith in ourselves, the people doing the work of care.
We spent years creating caregiver huddles, a framework for dialogue where caregivers solve the challenges they face. Now we’re tackling self-scheduling, another step toward self-governance. It’s not simple: when someone’s car breaks down, a child gets sick, or a client suddenly needs more support, teams often struggle to adapt. Schedule changes ripple through the week. But we believe the caregivers doing the work are best positioned to organize it. Who better to balance families’ needs with caregivers’ realities than those living it daily?
King spoke about “the tragic effects of poverty,” the “madness of militarism,” and “the evils of segregation.” These weren’t abstract problems but daily realities crushing actual people. Today’s care crisis shares this concreteness: real caregivers burning out, real families struggling to find support, real connections severed by systems that value efficiency over humanity.
The maladjusted don’t just critique. They build. At Highlander, leaders like Rosa Parks and John Lewis learned and grew together through dialogue and trust in people’s wisdom.
In Santa Fe, we’re trying to do the same. Our caregiver huddles create space for dialogue that supports caregivers to solve their own challenges. Self-scheduling is our next step toward self-governance, trusting caregivers not just with the work of care, but with organizing that work themselves.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about refusing to accept that the current way is the only way. It’s about believing, stubbornly, that systems can serve people rather than the other way around.
“Human salvation,” King said that day, “lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Not the cynically detached or the naively optimistic, but those who feel the wrongness deeply enough to act, practically enough to build.
Maladjustment, it turns out, is not a bad space to inhabit. It’s an active space, a creative space, a talkative and productive space. And we have cookies.
This column ran in the Santa Fe New Mexican on July 29, 2025, under Business Different.
