Happy New Year 2026!
The Tug of War: Balancing the “Need to Do” with the “Freedom to Be"
Preface
For the last eight years, I have taken time to think and write reflective essays to share with my family, friends, acquaintances, and the community. These reflections historically pertained to the way many of my peers and I have experienced the world as late-wave millennials. As I write this version for the ninth year in a row, I take pride in what I have accomplished, but I also want to acknowledge that I see this as a challenge for myself to face every year. No, I am not trying to make my life harder by presenting it with an additional “challenge”. However, I see this challenge as a positive use of my time because it forces me to slow down and think critically. The world would be a better place if we all took just a second to actually think. Our lives are interconnected through a series of decisions. Simplistically, an enhanced decision-making process will yield superior results.
One subject of this discussion today will be time. Candidly, I was very close to giving up on the composition and compilation of my New Year’s reflections. Mainly, I was blaming the “lack of time” and “busy schedule”. Thankfully, I received a nudge from a close friend. After receiving a text saying, “Fink wtf no New Year’s email???”, I knew that I had to stop making excuses and step back up to the plate. By continuing to draft the message, I am proving to myself that we can always prioritize what is important to ourselves.
Time permitted, I hope that this publication encourages all readers to allocate some of their resource called “time” to slow down, reflect, think critically, and find some stillness.
Introduction
Maybe it is because I am on the precipice of turning 30, but every year is starting to move faster. As I look back at all the great memories, it is difficult to believe that another year has come and gone. So much has changed, yet so much is still the same. There are more personal relationships, distractions, work, and external stimuli than ever before in history. For the first time in my life, every day became a new battle between “what do I need to do” vs. “what do I want to pursue”. This creates the question: how can I optimize my time to achieve my goals while still trying to enjoy my leisure time untethered from any “I need to get this done” internal monologue? With responsibilities mounting across work and personal life, how do I win this game of tug of war? To address some of these questions, I will reference some quotes and books that I came across throughout the year (shown at the end of the publication). The three main topics of discussion today will be Faster Longer Days, Transitional Periods, and Finding the Balance: Leisure vs. Productive Time.
Faster Longer Days
Let’s start with a paradox. How can days go by faster and be longer at the same time? Objective Time (The Clock): The days are longer because we are physically working more hours. For the context of this conversation, work is not just money-making activities; the word work applies to any type of mental processing of information. This can be relationships (friendships, love interests, and family), laundry, parenting, volunteering, reading, scrolling, housework, etc. Subjective Time (Our Brain): The days feel faster because when we are intensely busy, our brain “skips” the tracking of time to focus on the imperative tasks. An increase in external stimuli correlates directly with an accelerated perception of time. How do we slow down? I came across this quote from Matthew McConaughey in 2025, and it is useful for providing a partial answer to the previous dilemma.
We live in a world that constantly pushes us to fill every gap with noise. Stillness has a voice, but it speaks differently than the voices we’re used to hearing. Many people fear silence because it reveals what they’d rather ignore. Without noise to distract us, we face ourselves. This confrontation isn’t meant to crush us - it’s meant to heal us. It’s a doorway into deeper awareness.” – Matthew McConaughey
As we approach our 30s, why do we become so busy? Why does it feel like we are stalled in the fast lane? Well, the preeminent time suck is that most of us have to work to get a paycheck to survive. Then, let’s add finding a love interest, starting a family, networking, career advancement, spending time with immediate family/ loved ones, maintaining friendships, living through a political nightmare, caring for aging parents/family, living a social life, AND manufacturing a SLIVER of time for oneself. Lastly, amidst all of those external stimuli, the irony is that when we finally find that sliver of time, we often fill it with more noise simply to avoid the silence. This year, I am encouraging all to take time to decompress and carve out a slice of stillness.
Transitional Periods
When we can unearth some stillness in our lives, opportunities will emerge to redirect misaligned or wasted energy back in pursuit of positive actions that will carry us towards our longer-term goals. This discussion of “redirection” particularly resonates with the late-wave millennial generation, a cohort currently in a precarious spot based on conversations with my peers and my own experiences. Many of us who have been in the workforce over the last 6-11 years are entering a transitional phase. Thankfully, most of us entered the job market before COVID. Additionally, we were not trying to enter the job market in 2025, which was one of the most challenging job markets for new graduates in recent memory. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree graduates aged 20-24 reached 9.7%, which is double the national average. Additionally, according to the New York Fed, approximately 41.8% of recent college graduates are unemployed as of 1/9/2026. Gen-Z is facing a major challenge. This is a whole other discussion, but this speaks to the broader dilution of the US college education and the need to redirect education/ skilled labor towards other undersupplied industries (one example is trade school). Getting back on track, I am personally grateful that this is not our situation as we are starting our adult lives, and I know other readers agree.
Thankful, yes, however, it is worth acknowledging that the overall job market has been lackluster for the last three years. For most large companies, talent has at least been retained, but job growth has been limited to certain industries. Many companies have been trying to grow their business and revenue with the same or smaller headcount. Margin preservation has become the priority, which results in heavier workloads and less upside for many of my peers. To be clear, I am not against “hard work”, but the stagnant nature of this environment creates a higher likelihood of burnout. Questions arise, such as, “Does my current role support my path towards achieving my goals throughout my career”? Career mobility has stalled for most, at what is a transitional phase for many late-wave millennials who are seeking the next monumental career upgrade.
This transitional phase does not only apply to our careers, but includes life decisions such as marital status, childbearing, mental & physical health, caring for aging parents, standard of living, status, prestige, community service & participation, consolidation of ourselves, location of habitation, social maintenance, productivity, efficiency, and best use of energy. All of this will be easy to overcome over the long term, but presents noise in the now.
Breaking the cycle of noise and minutia requires more than just awareness; it requires action and sound decision-making ability. How do we get to where we want to go? The simplistic answer is maintaining a broad vision, then taking small steps every day to get there. While taking these small steps, we are forming habits to support our lifestyle on the way to the objective. Underpinning those habits is a chain of decisions. Every day starts with one decision. As the day progresses, the number of decisions compounds until we are left with a series of decisions. By the end of the day, can we say that the majority of those individual decisions were supportive of the overall objective? By the end of the day, can we say that the collective results of those decisions moved us one step closer to obtaining our dream vision and reaching our goals? As small as some of those moments and decisions may seem, they all matter when time and space are applied.
Finding the Balance: Leisure vs. Productive Time
Faced with an avalanche of responsibilities, efficiency and optimization become natural survival strategies. If we aren’t accomplishing something, we feel we are wasting time. Consequently, we begin to view time solely as a resource that must be spent wisely. This phenomenon is described by Steve Magness in his book, “Win the Inside Game”. He argues that we have forgotten how to “play”. Magness suggests that when we focus entirely on performance, status, and prestige, our identities become “narrow”. We become so stuck in attaining success that we lose the intrinsic joy that is the “fuel” that propels us in the first place.
Magness illuminates the concept that not all leisure time has to be productive. I consider this topic relevant because it directly contradicts our natural human instincts to address the external pressures that we have discussed. We become adults. We want to get ahead. We want to provide better lives for our family. We want to achieve our goals and dreams. We take on more responsibilities. Some of us want to work harder than others. We want success. Yet, we all still want to have fun. This conflict creates a trap: our perception of time becomes distorted. So naturally, we fill moments of our day with ways to be or feel productive”. To combat the daily ‘noise’ and the acceleration of time, Magness proposes a counterintuitive solution: we must give ourselves to be unproductive. The structure of our current society almost makes us turn our hobbies into side hustles for the sake of upward mobility. Magness argues that by forcing leisure time to be productive, we are losing the intrinsic joy in the little things that make life sustainable and enjoyable. It is important to grant ourselves “permission to play” so that we can cultivate our genuine interests. We want to explore because we feel an innate interest and not because this process will lead to a monetary result.
Seeking strict efficiency, optimization, status, prestige, success, and routine forces us to become narrower. As a result, the perception of time also accelerates. We are always “busy”. When this is unchecked, our sense of identity merges our meaning into a singular identity of what we perceive as “success”. Ironically, obsession with the “reward” suppresses the exact curiosity and passion that may propel us to overarching achievements in the long run. This means we have to strike a balance. Timing always matters. Thus, we have to utilize our focus and routine for pivotal performance WHEN it matters. Concurrently, we have to create time to have fun. Using play, curiosity, and aimless exploration as a means to preserve a diverse identity and recharge our mental energy. Finding “stillness” and seeking “play” is not time wasted. These are protective layers that sustain our identity from collapsing under the gravity of all external pressures.
Conclusion
In truth, it should be no secret that many of these topics of discussion throughout the narrative are personal battles that I have fought throughout the year. Every day, I want to be the best version of myself, and I want to have a positive impact on my family, friends, work, acquaintances, and community. The late-wave millennial life has been tumultuous over the years with multiple financial recessions, global pandemic, and blatant political corruption. Still, I remain grateful to be a citizen of the United States of America and happy to make a positive impact on the world one day at a time. Relatively, things could be a lot worse for all of us. None of us in this age group and younger have ever known the multitude of the hardships of our past generations such as being shipped off to die in war for the gain of elites or suffering famine. I am grateful for the opportunities we have for leisure, play, and to just dream. These luxuries cannot be taken for granted.
I realize that the “tug of war” between optimization, productivity, and enjoyment will likely never fully disappear. The external stimuli from the slow grind of the job market to the logistical demands of our 30s will be there, lurking, siphoning our energy. As generations pass, these may exist in different forms, but they will still be alive and waiting for our confrontation. We do not have to let those pressures dictate the speed at which our lives pass. By consciously choosing to step out of the “narrow” lane of constant productivity and into the “broad” space of aimless play, we do more than just rest. When we combine this paradigm with perfectly timed focus and superb decision-making, we reclaim ownership of our time. If we can find some stillness, maybe the days will cease to slip as fast. Cheers to a year filled with less noise, more stillness, and the freedom to be.
Top Reads 2025
Quit – Annie Duke
The Art of Winning – Bill Belichick
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Win the Inside Game – Steve Magness
The 5 Types of Wealth – Sahil Bloom
Wooden – John Wooden
Poor Charlie’s Almanack – Charles T. Munger
Favorite Quotes That I Encountered in 2025
“We are not given a short life, but we make it short. And we are not ill supplied but wasteful of it” – Seneca
Quality is not an act, it’s a habit – Aristotle
“One good outcome doesn’t mean anything. The only success that matters is sustained success” – Bill Belichick
“We live in a world that constantly urges us to fill every gap with noise…. stillness has a voice, but it speaks differently than the voices we are used to hearing. Many people fear silence because it reveals what they would rather ignore. Without noise to distract us, we come face to face with ourselves. This confrontation isn’t meant to crush us - it is meant to heal us. It is a doorway into deeper awareness” – Matthew McConaughey
“No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little” –Barbara W. Tuchman
Best of Luck,
Aaron David Garfinkel