Common Denominators: Life Is a Math Equation

 

It is August 1, 2026

On July 31st, I had my hair lady chop eight inches off my hair. Apparently, I woke up this morning forgetting that happened. I touched my head, panicked, and briefly died inside.

Then I took a shower and ran out of cold water.

Yes, cold-ass water.

It has been so hot outside that the water coming into the house is sometimes warmer than room temperature. Gross. Absolutely disrespectful.

While standing there questioning my hair, the weather, the water supply, and every decision that had brought me to that moment, I remembered something else.

On June 1, I started writing about common denominators.

I have not posted it because I did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Honestly, what I wrote hurt my own feelings.

But here it is.

The grand release of Common Denominators: Life Is a Math Equation.

I dove deeply into cognitive studies this summer.

Why do we do what we do?

Why do we repeat patterns even when we know they hurt us?

Why do certain relationships feel familiar, even when they are unhealthy?

I studied metacognition, which is essentially the ability to examine and regulate our own thinking. It requires us to move beyond simply experiencing our thoughts and emotions and begin asking why they keep showing up.

I also studied the limbic system and the networks in our brains involved in emotion, motivation, memory, learning, and behavior. Our emotional reactions do not occur separately from our memories. The brain connects what is happening now with what it has learned from what happened before.

In other words, sometimes we are not responding only to the person or situation standing in front of us.

We are responding to every previous experience our brain has decided feels similar.

Our brains are constantly asking:

Have we felt this before?

Did it hurt us?

Did it save us?

What did we do last time?

That is how a behavior can become a pattern.

That is how a pattern can become a cycle.

And that is how a cycle can begin to feel like a personality.

But it is not always your personality.

Sometimes it is simply a survival strategy that has overstayed its welcome.

After all that reading, reflecting, and digging through my own patterns of behavior, I came to a terrible conclusion:

I am my own worst common denominator.

I, Beth B., am presenting this realization before you, the reader:

You may also be the common denominator in many people’s lives.

This is not for the faint of heart.

It is not an attack.

It is not a public execution of every person who has ever hurt us.

This is purely out of love, accountability, and reflection.

Here we go.

I love fiercely.

Sometimes I love so fiercely that I forget about myself.

If you are in your mid adulthood, stuck on the hamster wheel, constantly blaming everyone else for what is wrong, waiting for someone to fix your life, or asking others to do the work you are not doing yourself, I am your human.

I will work so hard to save you that I will neglect myself and sometimes even neglect the people closest to me.

Then, when you do not succeed, I will blame myself for your failure.

Yes.

I, Beth B., will cover your ass to a fault.

I will give you tough love and then immediately feel guilty for giving it.

I will listen when you tell me the entire world is out to get you.

I will remind myself that hard is relative and that everyone carries something different.

Then I will get sucked directly back into the cycle.

You may indirectly suggest that my life is easier than yours.

You may act as though my accomplishments simply fell into my lap.

You may overlook the work happening behind the scenes, the sacrifices, the early mornings, the late nights, the anxiety, the failures, and every moment I wanted to quit.

And somehow, I will still make myself smaller so you do not feel uncomfortable.

So, who is the problem here?

ME.

I am 100 percent the common denominator in those relationships.

Not because I caused every problem.

Not because the other person has no responsibility.

I am the common denominator because I kept volunteering for the same role.

Rescuer.

Fixer.

Protector.

Cover-up crew.

Emotional support human.

I kept bringing a fire extinguisher to people who were actively collecting matches.

I will stifle my growth so I do not outgrow someone.

I will stop thinking upstream because someone says everything comes easily to me, even while I am busting my ass behind the scenes.

I will dim my light because someone else has decided my brightness is evidence of their darkness.

That is not humility.

That is not friendship.

That is not love.

That is self-abandonment disguised as loyalty.

Research on caregiving and self-silencing has identified patterns in which people become highly attuned to the needs of others while suppressing their own needs and prioritizing caregiving over self-care.

That hit me directly between the eyes.

Because loving people is beautiful.

Supporting people is beautiful.

Helping someone through a difficult season is beautiful.

But sacrificing yourself so someone else never has to become accountable is not love.

It is interference.

Sometimes constantly saving someone prevents them from experiencing the natural consequences that might finally encourage them to change.

Sometimes helping becomes enabling.

Sometimes loyalty becomes self-neglect.

Sometimes the common denominator is not that everyone uses you.

Sometimes the common denominator is that you repeatedly offer yourself for use.

Swear on the Bible, I am the common denominator.

Many relationships later, I have sometimes found myself disposed of like a government paper towel in a school bathroom.

The roll goes on and on.

Nothing is ever fully absorbed.

We exhaust the roll and move on.

I am still trying to determine whether I was the paper towel that failed to soak anything in, or whether the other person was simply committed to making the same mess.

Maybe it was both.

What I do know is that I can pick up a friendship where we left off, as long as the other person is also willing.

I can appreciate a person while recognizing that we cannot occupy the same place in each other’s lives anymore.

I can be grateful for memories without trying to recreate them.

I can pause a relationship and still speak cordially.

I can love someone and no longer volunteer to be destroyed by them.

I can admit that I played a role without accepting responsibility for everything that happened.

That is growth.

I once believed that when someone immediately cut off every person who questioned them, disagreed with them, or held them accountable, it was always because they were afraid of being “found out.”

The research is more complicated than that.

There is no honest way to say every person who ends a relationship is hiding something. Sometimes cutting contact is necessary, protective, and healthy.

However, research does suggest that shame is often associated with withdrawal and avoidance, while guilt is more commonly associated with repairing harm and reengaging with others.

That distinction matters.

Guilt says:

I did something wrong. How can I repair it?

Shame says:

There is something wrong with me. I need to hide.

When accountability feels like an attack on someone’s entire identity, avoidance may feel safer than reflection.

It can be easier to remove the person holding up the mirror than to examine what the mirror is showing.

Avoidance offers immediate emotional relief, but it rarely resolves the underlying conflict. Research has linked avoidant coping with increased distress and lower psychological well-being, and relationship research has connected withdrawal patterns with lower relationship satisfaction.

So, no, everyone who walks away is not afraid of being exposed.

But some people may withdraw because accountability triggers shame, fear, defensiveness, or an emotional threat response.

And sometimes we cut people off because we are protecting our peace.

The hard part is becoming self-aware enough to know the difference.

The limbic system and connected brain networks help link emotion, memory, motivation, and behavior. Emotional experiences can influence how we evaluate situations and make future decisions.

That means your brain may steer you toward what feels familiar, even when familiar is not healthy.

The rescuer keeps finding people who need rescuing.

The avoider keeps finding reasons to leave.

The people pleaser keeps finding people who are pleased to take.

The person terrified of abandonment may hold on to relationships long after the relationship has stopped holding them.

The person who fears accountability may surround themselves with people who never challenge them.

Then everyone looks around and says:

Why does this keep happening to me?

Because the names changed.

The locations changed.

The circumstances changed.

But the equation stayed the same.

If the same outcome keeps appearing, eventually we must examine the numbers we keep carrying into the problem.

That does not mean everything that happened was your fault.

It does not mean you deserved betrayal, mistreatment, manipulation, abandonment, or disrespect.

It means there is power in asking:

What role did I repeatedly accept?

What behavior did I excuse?

What boundary did I refuse to create?

What did I keep trying to prove?

Who was I trying to save?

What did saving them allow me to avoid examining in myself?

Metacognition asks us to monitor our thinking, evaluate our choices, and adjust our behavior based on what we learn.

It is thinking about your thinking.

But real growth requires more than thinking.

It requires changing the equation.

I can love fiercely without losing myself.

I can support people without carrying them.

I can listen without accepting responsibility for fixing everything.

I can celebrate someone’s potential without pretending their potential is their current reality.

I can recognize that someone is hurting without permitting them to hurt me.

I can give grace without removing accountability.

I can walk away without turning every memory into something ugly.

I can be grateful for what a relationship taught me while admitting it is no longer healthy for me.

I can grow without apologizing to people who preferred me smaller.

And most importantly, I can stop volunteering to be the common denominator in equations that continue to equal pain.

This reflection hurt my feelings because it forced me to stop examining everyone else and begin examining Beth.

I was not innocent in every cycle.

Sometimes my mistake was staying.

Sometimes it was rescuing.

Sometimes it was making excuses.

Sometimes it was assuming that loving people harder would make them love themselves enough to change.

Sometimes it was confusing being needed with being valued.

That is my work.

Your work may look completely different.

But before blaming every former friend, partner, coworker, family member, or person who has ever disappointed you, pause long enough to examine your equation.

Not to shame yourself.

Not to accept blame that does not belong to you.

Not to excuse anyone else’s behavior.

Do it because self-awareness is power.

Ask yourself the uncomfortable question:

What if I am the common denominator?

Then ask the more important one:

What am I finally willing to change?