The Currency of Struggle

I’ve been wrestling with something lately. A quiet frustration that stuck around long enough to deserve a closer look.

It shows up when someone close to me says they’re overwhelmed. Burnt out. Maxed out. And I know they mean it, but part of me instinctively compares it to what I’ve been carrying. That’s where the resentment starts.

Most days, I’m balancing multiple businesses, complex problems, and constant decision-making. Not because I’m chasing prestige, but because it’s the only structure that works for me. I’ve spent years moving from one demanding project to another, and I function best when I’m under load. If I slow down, I drift. My brain doesn’t do idle.

So I built a life around momentum. It works, but it also makes it hard to relate. When someone talks about how exhausted they are from a relatively light schedule, I catch myself pulling away. Not because I don’t care, but because the mismatch between our definitions of effort becomes hard to ignore.

Letting that frustration build turns connection into calculation. It makes the people around you feel smaller than they are, and your own work feels bitter instead of meaningful. I’ve felt that shift, and I don’t want to live there.

This isn’t just a personal issue. It happens everywhere. Relationships. Teams. Even tight-knit units where trust is everything. It creeps in when people start treating stress like a badge of honor, exaggerating effort for sympathy or status. If it goes unchecked, it fractures everything.

Somewhere along the way, exhaustion became a kind of social currency. You’re not just valuable for what you do, but for how loudly you suffer through it. If you’re someone who works in silence, you notice that. You notice who needs their grind to be recognized, who needs the struggle seen more than the results.

It’s not always intentional. Most people aren’t gaming the system. But when you carry more than you speak on, and someone else broadcasts every burden, it wears on you. It starts to feel like you live in a different world.

Research backs this up. A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that people tend to overestimate their own workload compared to others, especially in team settings. That bias makes everyone feel like they’re doing the most, even when they’re not. So while some are venting out loud, others are internalizing that imbalance quietly.

That’s when you start keeping score.

And that’s when it gets dangerous.

Resentment rarely announces itself. It shows up as distance. You stop offering ideas. You stop initiating. You stop trusting that the other person really knows what pressure feels like. By the time you notice, the connection already feels compromised.

I’ve felt that. I’ve heard someone complain about being slammed and nodded, all while thinking about the twenty things I handled before lunch. I didn’t say anything, but I started seeing them differently. Not as a teammate, but as someone I couldn’t count on. That’s the fracture point, when empathy gets replaced by judgment.

And once it sets in, even small interactions feel charged. Every complaint sounds like a dig. Every moment of venting sounds like theater. The issue stops being about work. It becomes a question of trust.

The hard truth is that waiting for resentment to speak for you never works. It doesn’t fix the dynamic. It just poisons it. If you want to prevent that drift, you have to stay ahead of it.

That means owning your limits. If you naturally take on more, that’s fine, but don’t use that as an excuse to stay silent and build resentment. Say when things aren’t sustainable. You don’t need permission to protect your bandwidth.

It also means watching for patterns. If someone always positions themselves as the most overwhelmed, pay attention. Not to judge, but to decide how close you want to stand when their narrative starts shaping reality.

And if you’re the quiet one, stop wearing that silence like a badge. I used to think not saying anything made me strong. All it really did was make me feel alone. People can’t respect what they can’t see. If you’re at capacity, say it. That’s not weakness. That’s honesty.

Maybe the biggest shift is redefining what hard work looks like. Just because someone talks about their stress more doesn’t mean they’re doing more. And just because you don’t say anything doesn’t mean you’re fine. Know the difference between humility and invisibility. One earns respect. The other eats away at it.

This isn’t about being tougher. It’s about protecting what matters before resentment ruins it.

I don’t expect everyone to move at my pace. That’s not realistic. But I do expect honesty. I expect people to live in reality, not in a burnout theater. And I need to hold myself to that same standard.

Because when struggle becomes currency, the whole system breaks. People inflate their pain, downplay others’ effort, and let resentment take the place of trust. That’s not something I want to be part of.

So now, I stay sharp on both sides. I check my story before I question someone else’s. I speak up before frustration sets in. And I remind myself that real connection isn’t about who works the hardest. It’s about being honest about what we carry.

-Gino