I always love the ending of the 2007 movie Juno.
Newly postpartum, teenage Juno gives up a baby for adoption, then confesses love to Paulie Bleeker, the baby’s father: “I think I'm in love with you. 'Cause you're, like, the coolest person I've ever met, and you don't even have to try, you know.”
Paulie, played by a deadpan Michael Cera, responds: “I try really hard actually.”
The delivery of the line makes it, not to mention the context. But it’s also this quietly profound, authentic thing to say: Hey, you may love what you see, but I actually put in a lot of invisible work to make this happen.
For women, in particular, that kind of statement feels highly relevant, basically always. At work, at home, in relationships, in bodies, there’s a nagging pressure to do things well performatively. To tie up every perfect day with a nice pretty bow. To achieve balance, effortlessly, in perpetuity.
And it’s exhausting.
Last week, we asked our audience about this, the invisible work women are doing and how they feel about it. We polled everyone on their least favorite life admin tasks—paying bills, dealing with insurance, cleaning house, things like that. Then we asked which one they’d outsource if they could.
I personally loved this survey because the written responses were so validating:
“Cleaning the dishes. A messy kitchen makes me feel so closed in and stressed, but I struggle to find the motivation because it feels like a never-ending task. Dishes make me feel like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill over and over again.”
Yes, absolutely. Adulthood makes Greek mythology more relatable every day. (You can read more of the comments here.)
But the replies are also what got me thinking about Paulie’s response—its genuineness and why it feels so refreshing in the context of life today.
Our world in 2026 is highly curated, both online and at work. Pretty Zoom backdrops, algorithm-driven LinkedIn posts, the performance of professionalism. It’s easy these days to see someone’s career and life and think: They’re the coolest person I’ve ever met, and they don’t even have to try.
It’s all success, no mess. And they’re doing it in 4K.
Here’s the beautiful reality that isn’t making your feeds: It’s extremely normal to have messy, uncurated lives. So normal that everyone does. Full stop.
Therapists call this “shared humanity.” The internet calls it, “never having an original thought.” It’s the realization that our struggles are far less unique than we think—a salve that breaks down isolation and fosters connection.
It’s also something I think is important to keep in mind while building anything in our highly optimized, achievement culture. Whether you’re applying for a dream job or once again completing Sisyphean tasks, shared humanity reminds us that we’re not an exception.
We’re not the only ones who can’t keep up. We’re not a problem. We’re not alone.
We’re all trying really hard, actually. For me, that looks like this:
A few months ago, at a volunteer event, a friend saw the chaos that is my computer: “What is happening with your desktop?” she said, gesturing at the layers upon layers of saved images, PDFs, and screenshots.
Her shock was valid. It’s a jump-scare. More than that, the state of my desktop isn’t who I am at work: “You think I’m organized because you know what it’s like to work with me,” I told her. “I’m ‘organized presenting.’”
Any organization I do is effort, not instinct. It’s me trying. I present as organized when I work, volunteer, plan trips, or do things with friends because trying is important. But it’s taxing and it majorly contributes to my mental load.
When it’s just me moving through the world, things fall apart sometimes—like my desktop or the garbage disposal I avoided fixing for a few weeks because I didn’t want to watch another YouTube video. This is usually when I know I’ve given too much somewhere else.
Life bar is at zero.
What helps me be at peace with that is finding the shared humanity. One of my best friends has a lived-in house just like mine, and I sometimes spot her laundry pile in the background of the outfit pics she sends me. Another prefers to unload the dishwasher when we talk on the phone. And often, because I get to look at InHerSight data every day, I read survey comments that remind me at least one other person feels exactly the same way I do.
Then I go upstairs, make my bed (which I do every day, because I’m very brave), and decide that can be enough.
