Emotional currency

When it comes to intellectual growth, we readily accept the idea that it takes challenge, discomfort, and effort. We study new subjects, take on complex projects, and expand our cognitive load over time. My advisor told me, “You can only grow your capacity to handle more when you challenge yourself to deal with more at once.” That stuck with me—because it’s true. You get better at managing more by doing more.

Similarly, my dad once said, “No one is too busy. I don’t care what you do—if you’re too busy, you’re not managing your time well.” He was talking about relationships and communication—how disappointed he is when people say they “don’t have time” to check in or respond.

At the time, I didn’t connect these two pieces of advice. They were given in completely different contexts—one about professional productivity, the other about emotional maintenance. But now I think they’re deeply related. They both speak to the idea of capacity—not just how we manage it, but how we grow it.

Lately, I’ve started to believe that emotional capacity deserves just as much intention and development as intellectual capacity. We don’t talk about emotional bandwidth in the same way, but maybe we should.

In the past year, I’ve become acutely aware of how much emotional energy I have to offer—how much I can give, how much I can sustain, and when I’m stretching myself too thin. With the end of my long term relationship that consumed most of my time and attention, I found myself with a new wealth of energy. A regeneration of my emotional currency. I began redirecting it into my friendships and my relationship with my parents and sister. It made me realize how much I’d sidelined relationships that truly mattered in the name of “not having time.” In truth, I’d just been overdrawn and lacked the self-awareness to address it.

One of my best friends seems to operate like this: every new relationship he takes on means one old one gets cut. It’s like a zero-sum accounting model—emotional capacity must be reallocated from somewhere else. But I don’t think that’s sustainable. That’s not growth. That’s budgeting within a fixed cap. It’s like refusing to learn something new because you don’t want to forget something else.

To me, emotional capacity should be treated more like a bank account that can grow—but only with intention. You can’t recklessly spend. You also can’t assume growth without effort. You need to know your limits, spend wisely, and seek ways to expand what you can hold. If you don’t, you’ll go into emotional debt—resentment, burnout, detachment.

Just like we train our minds to take on more challenge, I think we should bring this perspective to our relationships. Not more people, necessarily—but more presence. More responsibility. More grace.