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The post below has over 1M views across Instagram and TikTok.

And it was inspired by a series of conversations with friends, family, and some Habits users. Generally speaking, a lot of high achieving people are pivoting their approach to their day to day at work.

There is a specific piece of advice I picked up years ago that has quietly become a cornerstone of how I navigate my weeks. I honestly can’t remember who told me, which is annoying because I’d like to thank them, but the gist was simple: whenever you find yourself on a long walk, a solo car ride, stuck on a miserable airport layover, or anywhere you’re just killing time, give someone a call. Not a scheduled Zoom. Not a "let’s hop on a sync" calendar invite. Just an impulsive, old-school dial.

I have a rotating list of about 15 or 20 people I do this with. It is entirely unplanned. There is no "hey, you have 5 minutes?" text beforehand. I’ll just be walking to get a coffee or pacing a terminal and I start ripping through the list. It’s become a bit of a chaotic game of phone tag. I’ll call a friend, they won’t pick up, then they’ll call me back 20 minutes later while I’m already deep in a conversation with someone else, forcing me to text them "sorry, on with so-and-so" while they laugh at the absurdity of it.

I’m actually writing this while traveling for work, crashing in the spare bedroom of one of my closest friends in a couple of days. Even with him, the rules are the same. I’ll call him out of the blue, and sometimes he picks up, and sometimes he literally doesn't even acknowledge the ring. Even in situations (like this week) where I’ll see the guy in 48 hours. But I don't take it personally. He’s busy. I’m busy. We’ve all got stuff to do. But when the connection does happen, the conversations are the opposite of the curated, polished updates we post on social media.

This past week alone, the topics were all over the map. I talked about college basketball and my brother’s recent trip to Mexico City. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with my sister decompressing the logistics of her bachelorette party and wedding details. I caught up with a buddy in grad school at Vanderbilt who is staring down a job market that looks increasingly hostile to his peers. Another friend walked me through his DIY home projects, describing the process of tearing down closets and learning drywall from YouTube just so he could feel some sense of agency over his own house. From new babies to work drama, the calls are a raw cross-section of what it actually means to be a human in 2026.

Everyone, regardless of age or status, feels a little bit better after an unexpected, agenda-free call just to see how life is actually going.

But as I looked back on the 15 or so "catch-up" calls I’ve had over the last month, a pattern started to emerge that I can’t quite shake. Most of the people I’m calling are what you’d categorize as high-achievers. They are founders, med device sales reps, big tech employees, doctors, physician assistants, investment bankers, or stay-at-home moms managing households in NYC, SF, or the Midwest. On paper, they are doing fine. They are the HENRYs (High Earners, Not Rich Yet) and the DINKs who should, theoretically, be feeling great.

Instead, almost every single one of them sounds a little nervous.

It’s a general consensus that we are living in a simulation. The simulation is simple and exhausting: you wake up and look at a 7-inch device. You commute to a desk to stare at a 32-inch screen. You go home and "reward" yourself by staring at a 52-inch screen while simultaneously scrolling on that same 7-inch device until your eyes burn. Meanwhile, the money is flowing out of the accounts for subscriptions we forgot we had and "stuff" we don't really need, all while we simulate the experience of being alive rather than actually inhabiting it.

I am not throwing stones from a glass house here. I am the CEO of a startup. I am just as guilty as anyone. I’ll go through stretches of 70-hour work weeks where my entire reality is mediated through a glass pane. I post 5 times a week on Instagram, another half-dozen on LinkedIn, and probably 20 times on Threads. I’m digesting the algorithms all day, every day. I just finished binging that 50 Cent documentary and I’m currently deep into Pluribus on HBO. I am a cog in the machine just like everyone else, and sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, I have to stop and ask myself what the hell I’m actually doing.

Success on paper doesn't count for much if you feel like you're just a spectator in your own life.

The reality for my generation is that we’ve watched the world shrink. We grew up with the promise of in-person jobs and physical internships, only to watch the entire professional world get compressed into a pocket-sized device. We graduated during the financial crisis, hit our stride in our late 20s just in time for a global pandemic, and now we’re in our 30s and 40s wondering if the roles we spent a decade mastering are about to be automated by an AI agent.

We’re paying $600 a month in student loans while trying to scrap together enough cash to bid 20% above asking on a house with a 6% interest rate. And even though 6% isn't "bad" in a historical context, it feels like a mountain when you’ve been told your whole life that the path to stability was supposed to be linear. People feel stuck, but I don’t think it’s just the economics. I think it’s the noise.

We listen to a podcast while we cook. We scroll while we watch Netflix. We answer Slack messages while we’re at the park with our kids. We are so terrified of being alone with our own thoughts for 30 seconds that we’ve optimized for "staying informed" at the expense of being present.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been testing a personal challenge to break the fever. Two things have stood out: a 15-minute walk outside every day with no headphones, just a pure, old-school stroll, and a hard "no phone" rule between 8pm and 8am.

I’ll still use my computer to type out a post like this or play some online chess, but being away from the push notifications and the social feeds has changed the frequency I operate on.

It makes those impulsive phone calls feel even more vital. When you stop consuming everyone else’s curated highlights, you realize that the "nervousness" your friends are feeling isn't a sign of failure. It's just the sound of people trying to find their footing in a world that’s moving a little too fast.

The antidote to feeling like a cog in a simulation is often as simple as putting the phone in a drawer and calling a friend to talk about absolutely nothing.

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