The Work Has to Be Shared

Gary Stevenson’s video about ending regular weekly uploads isn’t just an update—it’s a profound question about creating change without burning out.

Stevenson grew up poor, then made a fortune as a Citibank interest-rates trader. His experience gave him unique insight into inequality—both from inside the financial system and from the outside looking in. He later built Gary’s Economics on the relationship between wealth inequality and falling living standards.

In the video, he reflects on all the avenues he explored to share his understanding, in an attempt to make a change. After banking, he looks for people already working on the problem. When he cannot find enough of them, he writes down his own theory. He tries academia to see whether economists are missing the same thing. When that route fails, he turns to media.

During COVID, writing gives him an opening. But mainstream media and left-wing spaces are not reaching ordinary people, so YouTube becomes the gap he can fill. His book, documentary, press work, and lobbying all grow from the same urgency. Each step reaches further. Each step also makes more of the work depend on him.

That is the tension in the video. The same drive that makes his work powerful also seems to make it difficult to sustain when so much depends on him.

Gary talks about obsession as something that has followed him through different parts of his life. While writing his book, he sees the pattern clearly: as he describes his obsessive behaviour in banking, he realizes his book has begun to take the same hold on him.

The impulse comes from a good place. He wants to make a change, and he throws himself at the openings he can see. But living through constant peaks and crashes is not sustainable. I personally know what it is like to be consumed by something that feels important—giving it your all—only to end up feeling like you’ve accomplished nothing.

Watching Gary reach that point resonated with me because I’ve been there too. After therapy, I have learned that for things to be worthwhile, I need to be able to maintain them. To be patient and trust the process. That I cannot keep burning everything up in one push, just to be left defeated, unable to go further. It is hard to watch someone reach the point where rest is no longer optional.

That is why the ending of Gary’s video mattered to me. He arrives at the idea that one person cannot carry this alone. It cannot be a story in which Gary Stevenson saves the world.

Watching Gary step back made me reflect on how I want to approach my own work. I want to build with others, not carry everything alone. Gary, I hope you are able to rest, recover, and find a way forward that doesn’t demand everything from you.