“I dread Monday.”
It’s one of the most common thoughts among everyday workers. For many of us, just the thought of going to work feels draining. Exhausting. And the cause? Obvious! It’s the job. The boss. The coworkers. Right?
Well, what if it isn’t your job at all?
What if the exhaustion you associate with work is actually caused by accumulated mental friction—those small, repeated annoyances that quietly wear you down before 9 a.m.?
The human brain isn’t very good at identifying the true source of stress, especially when it comes from minor, recurring frustrations. We tend to pin the bad mood on something big. Individually, these moments feel insignificant. But over time, they compound. Your brain begins to label the entire experience—your commute, your workday, even your job—as something to dread.
And that’s how Monday fear is born.
Why the Commute Is the Perfect Friction Machine
The fun begins the moment you leave your door.
“Oh no, the keys.” Bag straps digging in the shoulders. Noisy trains. Noisy people. Thirsty. Can’t unwind from the morning rush. The phone is dying. Traffic. Bored. Rude people. Long lines. Rain. Forgot lunch. Missed the bus. Running out of gas. Coming late to work. Too cold. Too hot. Tired legs. Germs. No seats. Tangled headphones.
And it’s not even 9 AM. And again after 5…
By the time you arrive at work, your brain has already spent its entire patience budget!
This mountain of minor miseries isn’t just annoying—it’s a psychological trap: we dismiss them as too insignificant to resolve.
Why Small Frustrations Hurt More Than Big Ones
Our brains are wired to respond to big threats and major life events—not small, everyday problems. This isn’t a personal shortcoming; it’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon.
In 2004, psychologist Daniel Gilbert described something called the Region-Beta Paradox. In simple terms, it means that humans tend to address extreme situations but ignore the minor ones.
When something feels serious enough, we take action. But when a problem feels small—an inconvenience, an annoyance, a mild irritation—we dismiss it as not worth fixing. We tell ourselves it’s insignificant. In his words: “A trick knee hurts longer than a shattered patella.”
Ironically, this means that small pains often last longer than big ones—because we never deal with them.
This is why we tolerate a bad commute for years, but would quit a job instantly the moment our boss gets upset.
The problem is that these small frustrations don’t disappear. They linger in the background as micro-stressors, quietly draining our mental energy. Over time, they create irritation, fatigue, and even resentment – all while we blame the job instead of the real culprit: the commute.
The Surprisingly Fixable Truth
Now here is the good news: most of these issues are surprisingly simple to solve.
Noise? Noise canceling earbuds can give an extra hour of mental freedom a day. Shoulder straps? A well padded backpack eliminates it completely. Rain? A compact umbrella solves this in an instant. Boredom? With a little planning you can turn your commute into the most engaging part of your day.
If we would only give some thought to all our minor frustrations-and resolve them, we would be shocked at how dramatically our lives would improve.
And the sad part? It is so simple.
But we don’t. Instead we ignore the simple fixes and blame the one thing that is the hardest to change: the job itself. How ironic.
Stop Accepting. Start Fixing.
Here is the challenge. What would happen if you spent the next week just observing?
Paying attention to the small things that drain you during the commute. When does that sigh come? When your shoulders start to hurt. When your phone drops to 10%. When the train is screeching in your brain. When you are rummaging through your messy bag.
Just take notice.
You will likely uncover at least 10 friction-inducing moments you experience every single day. And those small frustrations may account for a surprisingly large part of the emotional drag weighing you down.
Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
And once you name them, you can fix them—one by one. Quickly. Simply.
Just carry smarter. Commute better. And enjoy your job again.
And dread Monday no more.