"to tread water" is an idiom, that means: To put a lot of time and effort into something, but not get much of a result, or get a better result that you might have been getting previously.
Guy 1 : "Man, all day I've been sitting here thinking, all I do is tread water lately.... "
Guy 2: " Why's that? "
Guy 1: " I don't know, maybe I haven't been pushing myself hard enough lately. Maybe I need to go back to my roots, and just grind like I used to. "
Telling somebody to go away. Also said to unimportant people in your life when they try to talk to you. Or how you feel when you feel that you can't move forward.
guy1: Why haven't got a new girl friend
guy2: because I can 't move on
Guy1: she was 5years ago...
guy2: I know
Guy1: Ugh, you love to tread water
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”