Life is experienced through different levels of intensity. We can feel it on a roller coaster, when we turn up the volume, or when we have an intense conversation. While 100-meter sprints are short and intense, making our hearts pound and our breathing skyrocket, a marathon is more about sustained effort, a slow burn that tests our patience. Of course, sprints are relative. They could be a spicy meal, a single workout, a month-long intensive course, or a year building something that matters. Intensity is in the concentration of effort, not necessarily the duration.

We tend to celebrate the marathon-style living because it demands consistency and is a “visible” grind in the day to day. But we tend to underestimate or overlook the sprint moments: the emotions behind critical decisions, the energy required behind big projects, bold leaps, and risks taken.

Some undertakings demand greater risk exposure and are overwhelmingly dangerous or physically degrading over time. While some may be compensated accordingly, many aren’t, and they’re rarely honored. Meanwhile, other essential work requires relentless daily routines or ongoing maintenance and upkeep that go just as unnoticed. The bottom line is that both deserve equal recognition, whether it’s the heroic daily grind or the bolder moves, frequent or rare.

Many overlooked conflicts, both within ourselves and in our relationships, stem from neglecting to recognize the intensity we’ve lived through. If we are unable or unwilling to acknowledge this, we set ourselves up to misjudge the efforts and sacrifices of the past, the present circumstances, and future capabilities.

At the very least, I believe having a clearer picture of the intensity we engage in or are subject to throughout our lives can help us live with greater compassion and humility, and focus on what truly matters. Let us explore why living with intensity is relevant, why it’s overlooked, and how it affects our intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal lives.

1. Intrapersonal (Within yourself)

Intensity can be expressed by units that measure the objective output of things like sound, brightness, and heat. So something very intense has a lot of focused energy per unit of area: a laser beam concentrates its energy into a focal point, while a flashlight spreads it over a wider area. The key idea is that different kinds of effort need to be distributed differently.

Intensity can also be subjective, as each of us experiences situations in a different way. For example, we perceive how loud or how hot something is in our own way, and we definitely process emotionally intense moments differently. We create memories and stories that shape us for the rest of our lives.

So why does this matter?

Because intensity boils down to how we apply effort and for how long. There’s the sustained effort in our daily grind of preparation (years of demanding study or intensive training), consistency, and continuous discipline to pursue our goals, and there’s the intense pushes where we take bold risks and make concentrated efforts that may leave us physically exhausted and emotionally spent. In life, we need both. Both types of effort require sacrifices to live our lives aligned with our values.

Understanding intensity within ourselves means recognizing our own patterns: when we’ve been sprinting, and when we’ve been running marathons. Most importantly, it means asking why we’ve been choosing to spend our time this way, or whether we’ve simply been on autopilot. But there’s one more piece to the puzzle that’s often overlooked: rest. I know firsthand that rest is often viewed as “unproductive” and laziness. Yet, rest is an essential part of intensity. Appropriate periods of rest are what give us the capacity to go into bursts of intensity—be it recovering from an intensive workout or a creative endeavor. Without them we burn out, without them, we cannot sprint.

Being aware of this allows us to plan how to use our energy strategically. We can harmonize both modes to pursue our goals without burning out. If we examine how past intense experiences have shaped us, we can plan future pushes more intentionally. We should stop judging ourselves against others’ timelines and instead focus on our own intensity: what we’ve endured, what we’re capable of, who we want to become, and what we want to achieve.

2. Interpersonal (Between people)

We’re never alone on our journeys, and we wouldn’t want to be. From the families we were born into, to the families we create, we depend, in varying degrees, on all the important relationships we form.

But there’s one that’s particularly under a lot of pressure: committed relationships, partnerships, and marriages. Gender roles have shifted, and it’s not clear exactly who provides what and how much, or who brings what to the table. Western society seems to be drifting away from the traditional structures that used to provide clarity, however imperfect, but hasn’t exactly come up with new ones to replace them. Any emergent alternatives lack the test of time, which warrants a healthy dose of caution.

People in relationships struggle with all the usual hardships of making money, cleaning, cooking, maintenance, and taking care of children (if any), with the additional modern burdens of who decides how money is spent and who gets time and space for themselves. It’s like a tug-of-war with no winner. Many relationships nowadays reach an impasse, unable to compromise on the use of resources. Oftentimes, this creates additional tension as both parties notice who rewards themselves more and start doing the same—racing to spend more instead of building wealth together.

These relationship challenges are of a temporal kind: efforts aren’t made or required at the same time. While one partner may have spent years building a foundation through multiple jobs, frugality, and postponing personal desires, the other may have chosen to invest that energy later or in different domains entirely. There isn’t a right path. However, relationships often have an invisible imbalance in accumulated sacrifice that goes unacknowledged. The partner who enters the relationship when economic stability has already been established may not fully grasp the years of grinding that it took to create that foundation. Similarly, the one who built the foundation may overlook the daily labor that it takes to maintain it (and everything in between).

When partners have different timelines, it’s important to honor the invisible sacrifices each has made. The key is not one of transaction, but one of genuine acknowledgment for what each person has given up. The more each person feels seen, the more likely they’ll work toward a common future. This shared vision isn’t about erasing individual dreams, but about providing a desired direction that they prioritize for the relationship.

And yet modern relationships seldom have a team vision. They don’t truly see each other, understand where they come from, and the sacrifices that each individual has made. Seeing these sacrifices isn’t about keeping score or going on a comparison frenzy both within and with other relationships, it’s about couples asking different kinds of questions: What kind of life (and family) do we want to build? What does our future vision look like? If we want to have meaningful and long-lasting relationships, we must all step outside ourselves and be a team. This doesn’t mean you stop caring about yourself—it just means you can see beyond your own needs and contributions.

Unlike a tug-of-war, teams can channel intensity. It becomes more like an athletic relay event where we pass the baton knowing we won’t perform at the same speed, power, or endurance, but we’ll still go further together.

3. Extrapersonal (With the world)

Consider what lies external to the person, like access to resources, tools, methods, and opportunities, as well as safety, justice and well-being. Not all effort is created equal, and not all resources are equally available. Not all risks taken have the privilege of a safety net. And thus, not all sacrifice is equal either. While I believe we should work to make our systems provide more equality or equity, at the personal level, we can only be responsible for ourselves.

Even if we manage our intensity well and work together effectively, we’re still subject to the environment. The most immediate way this shows up and affects us is economic pressure.

If we find ourselves living paycheck-to-paycheck (or worse), it leaves us with little to no room for sprints and even less room for sustained marathons. Everything has become unimaginably expensive, and the odds of succeeding today are truly stacked against young adults.

Systems, markets, and corporations are all competing for our attention—to distract us from our goals, but most importantly, to funnel resources from our pockets to theirs. Yes, they provide value with the services and products they offer, but as long as people are politically polarized, uncertain about evolving gender roles and identity, struggling in their relationships, and financially exhausted, we become easy prey to entities that exploit that exhaustion.

It’s not just a financial rat race, where we’re trapped with obligations that keep exceeding what we earn—but an emotional rat race of sorts, where we feel that we’re never enough, never accomplish enough, and are emotionally drained. This dual exhaustion makes us vulnerable to manipulation in our life decisions.

So what can we do about all this?

We must make personal amends with our past and remember what we stand for. Lingering resentments and regrets occupy precious mental real estate that we need to engage with intensity, in the present and in the future.

We shouldn’t be afraid to start a relationship or strengthen our current one with a common vision. We should approach our relationships with empathy and compassion for where each person has come from, honoring both the grind and moments of intensity.

Stay mindful of how external forces want our resources and compete for our attention. While attending private universities, homeownership, and tackling everyday expenses has become astronomically expensive, this same economy offers opportunities we can learn to recognize that give us better odds of finding our way forward. If we stay focused and develop strategic awareness of how markets and systems work, we can make progress toward our goals, and secure our future as we strive not only to make money but to keep it and enjoy it intelligently.

When we become aware of our own patterns and stop living on autopilot, when we truly see our partners’ sacrifices and work as a team, and when we stay vigilant about how external forces may manipulate our choices, we reclaim a sense of autonomy and meaning in our lives.

Now more than ever, we’re constantly exposed to others appearing to be living larger than we are, making us feel like we’re always falling behind, while every purchase becomes more convenient and harder to resist. Living with intensity is ultimately about building meaningful lives and lasting relationships despite constant noise, shifting paradigms, and fierce competition.