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Hey, everyone. Emily Abadi here. You are listening to another installment of five-minute

Friday on Hurtle. I had a realization the other day, and I have been mulling over it

ever since. I was out to drinks with a friend of mine, someone who is currently

in the thick of it, to say the least, with a young baby. And if you have been there, I'm sure

that you know this vibe. The exhaustion is real. The stakes of her daily life likely feel massive. She is in it.

And as we were sitting there, I caught myself. I realized I wasn't really letting her ask about me.

Or when she did, I'd give a two-sentence update and then immediately pivot back to her.

My internal monologue was her life is so much bigger right now. My work stressed or what I'm doing

at the gym or what's going on with my apartment lease situation, my personal drama.

It's just not as important.

Now, admittedly, this is not the first time that it's come up lately.

In fact, it comes up constantly.

Another friend actually called me out on this recently when I was telling her about

something that I was going through that was

really bothering me, a genuine hurdle that I was navigating. And I started the sentence with,

I know there are so many bigger problems in the world, but, and she stopped me. She literally

stopped me and she said, why are you qualifying your struggle?

Yeah, little mic drop right there.

She was like, why are you apologizing for having a hard time just because someone else might have it harder?

And this is such an important question.

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