You're stuck in a loop. No matter what you do, it never seems to be quite enough.

• Your partner says the relationship feels disconnected, so you book a nicer vacation and work harder to provide. But the disconnection remains.

• Your project at work isn't quite perfect, so you stay late, pull weekends, optimize every detail. But the satisfaction doesn't come.

• You're feeling alone and overwhelmed, so you scroll more, drink more, party harder—anything to escape the feeling. But the emptiness persists.

You're doing more. Adding more effort, more hours, more intensity, more stuff. And yet the problems aren't solving. If anything, they're getting worse.

The frustrating part? Everyone around you seems to validate this approach. Work harder. Try more. Add more. Maximal effort. More input equals better output. More must equal better.

This is what success looks like, isn't it?

But what if the problem isn't that you're not doing enough? What if the problem is that you're doing too much?

You've noticed things aren't working anymore.

The strategies that got you through life - pushing forward, staying busy, keeping emotions at bay - have stopped being effective. Relationships feel strained. Your partner says you're "emotionally unavailable." Your kids seem distant. Work success isn't bringing the satisfaction it once did. You're questioning yourself in ways you never have before.

Maybe you've had a significant life event - a divorce, a career setback, a health scare - that's forced you to pause.

You look around and wonder: "Is this it? Is this all there is?"

Here's something that will blow your mind:

"Crazy Train" is a disco song. 🎶

That's right, the most recognizable heavy metal anthem—Ozzy Osbourne's headbanging classic—has a distinctly disco rhythm section, according to the hosts of the One Song podcast. And if you've seen the live version of ABBA's "Mamma Mia", they reference the Crazy Train guitar riff in their own disco-heavy performance.

It reminds me that how we see the world is often not the same as the world itself.

Here's what they don't tell you about the modern man's relationship with work:

It's not all about ambition or career advancement.

Sometimes it’s about avoiding the messy, unpredictable complexity of real life, and the exhausting vulnerability that comes with authentic relationships.

While women have been gathering, men have been scrolling. Blame the pandemic or social media, but men have gotten used to the frictionless way that their phone allows them to interact with the world. And it's costing them.

Here's what they don't tell you about perfection:

It's not actually about achieving excellence.

It's about avoiding the anxiety of being human, and the exhausting performance that comes with it.

Here's what they don't tell you about vulnerability:

It's not actually about being vulnerable.

It's about finding someone who won't turn your openness into a weapon.

Think about the last time you took a real road trip. Not a commute, but an actual journey with people you care about. Remember how different it felt when you hit construction, got stuck in traffic, or took a wrong turn?

Instead of rage and frustration, there was conversation. Instead of isolation, there was connection. The same obstacles that would ruin a commute became part of the story, part of the adventure.

Pain works the same way.

We think we're having the same conversation.

We're not.

You're speaking rapport. They're speaking report. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, you're both frustrated, both convinced the other person isn't listening, both certain you're right.

Pop culture has a way of holding up a mirror to society, reflecting back truths we'd rather not face. This week, it's Sabrina Carpenter doing the reflecting with her summer anthem about men's incompetence. The song is brutal in its honesty:

"Never heard of self care / Half your brain isn't there."

Ouch.

Rivers don't fight their banks. They don't try to make the water stop flowing. They work with the landscape, carving new paths when needed, but always, always moving.

The river is powerful not because it's still, but because it's alive

Here's something that will make you uncomfortable: Your stability might be the very thing destroying your relationships.

This insight cuts to the heart of why so many relationships spiral into patterns of resentment and disconnection.

When you are stable, you enable.

There is a power dynamic that shows up uninvited to every dinner conversation, every decision about money, every moment when someone needs to be right and someone else needs to keep the peace.

Therapists have a name for what most of us are doing without realizing it:

One up and one down.

Here's what's interesting: we think this is natural. We think it's just how things work.

It's not.

People lie to themselves all the time.

This isn't news. It's just that when you sit across from someone who's actively deceiving themselves—when you witness the intricate dance between what they say they want and what their actions reveal—you realize that self-deception isn't just common. It's fundamental to how we function.

We spend our lives performing.

On the playground, in boardrooms, on Instagram stories. Waiting for applause, hearts, promotions, and nods of approval.

This week, I made a discovery that shouldn't have surprised me but did:

Most self-esteem isn't authentic at all. It's performative.