Friday night. Eight men sitting under two heat lamps, eating soup of all things, talking about roses, buds, and thorns.

One of the guys had organized it. A men's night. The kind where you actually talk about what's going on instead of just watching the game. (Though we did take a brief detour into Murder Mountain and Humboldt County before getting back on track.)

The homework: scroll through your camera roll from the year. Come ready to share a rose, a bud, and a thorn.

I'd done it quickly on the way over. Just flew in from Seattle after a long week. Scrolled back a few months, picked some highlights, thought I had what I needed.

As we went around the table, themes started to emerge.

Financial pressures. The tension between making time for aging parents and making time for kids. Grief and loss, and trying to process something so abstract while keeping life moving forward.

Pushing hard in your work to provide for your family, but that same push stealing the time you get to spend with them. Handling everything well on paper, but ending the day depleted.

The guys were generous with their stories. Honest in ways that don't happen at most tables. I'm grateful they welcomed me to that.

The roses, buds, and thorns kept bleeding into each other.

One theme kept surfacing for me: time.

How we spend it. How fast it goes. How there never seems to be enough of it, no matter how intentional we try to be.

I drove home thinking about how everyone at that table was living full lives.

Building things that mattered. And still wishing there was more time for all of it.

You might not have eight buddies under heat lamps. But you likely still know this feeling.

Saturday morning, I went back through my camera roll. Really went through it this time.

Family dinners with everyone squeezed around the table. Beaches. Baseball games. Mountains. Friends visiting from out of town. Hiking trails. Birthday celebrations. Quiet moments that didn't feel quiet at the time. Work wins that mattered. Conversations that shifted something.

But also: Photos from airports and hotel rooms. The LA fires threatening everything. Medical visits and me in crutches. Some hard moments that were also formative to the year and required time, energy and effort.

I kept scrolling.

There was so much. We'd done so much. And I'd forgotten most of it.

Where did the year go?

It's December 13th. You're looking at the calendar. Maybe you’re thinking, The days are so full. Where does the time go?

You had plans. Things you wanted to start. People you meant to call. Books you were going to read. Projects that mattered.

And now here we are.

Nearly 80% of professionals report feeling rushed all the time. Two-fifths of parents say that most days, they're so stressed they cannot function.

Time scarcity is everywhere. And every article about it tells you the same thing: Cut the noise. Prioritize. Be more efficient. Stop wasting time.

But what if they're solving for the wrong problem?

Sometimes scarcity is from waste - scrolling when you meant to create, saying yes to things that don't align, running on autopilot through days that blur for the wrong reasons.

Some is from survival - you're in the grind because the bills don't wait. And sometimes what looks like waste is actually serving a purpose; rest, exploration, the randomness that leads somewhere you couldn't have planned.

But I think there's a third cause of time scarcity.

For people showing up for what matters most, time scarcity doesn't come from waste. It comes from fullness.

The year didn't disappear because you scrolled it away. It disappeared because you were immersed. Present when someone you love needed you. Deep in work that required everything you had - work that actually mattered, that moved something forward. Showing up when it counted.

Here's the paradox: Your camera roll is full. You did so much. But you forgot most of it. Not because it didn't matter - because you were too present to keep track while you were living it. When you're narrating life as it happens, time drags. When you're too immersed to narrate, it flies.

When you're too present to keep score, the blur isn't failure. It's proof.

What if your problem isn't saying yes to things that don't matter?

What if everything you're saying yes to does matter?

What if the reason you feel overwhelmed isn't because you're doing too much shallow work, but because you're doing deep work in multiple places and there's not enough of you to go around?

You can't be fully present for the people who matter and finish everything at work and stay caught up with every friend and read every book and take care of your health and care for aging parents and build that creative project and train for the thing that matters to you and show up for your community.

Not in the same week. Not in the same year.

Every yes costs something. Not because you're bad at time management. Because time is finite and your life is full.

You can handle it all well on paper and still not love how you're handling it. You can succeed and end the day completely depleted, wondering why you didn't save a little more energy for yourself.

That's not failure either. That's the cost showing up in a different way.

You look at the year and see what didn't get done. The gaps. The things you meant to start. The people you didn't reach out to.

And the questions come: Should I have done more? Did I waste the year? What am I doing wrong?

But what did you actually do with it?

Maybe you spent it showing up for the people you love. Building work that matters. Creating something that didn't exist before. Being the friend who answered the call. Caring for someone who needed you. Processing what you lost. Enduring what you couldn't change.

And meaning takes on many meanings. What mattered most this year might shift next year. Maybe this season required rest more than output. Maybe next season will require building more than wandering. That's not failure. That's listening.

The question isn't "Did I do enough?" It's "What did I choose, and do I still choose it?"

Here’s your nudge for this week: go through your camera roll. Really go through it. Let it remind you what happened this year - what you captured, and what the absence reveals about where you were too present to photograph.

The celebrations and the crises. The wins and the injuries. The moments you chose to document because somehow that helped you process them.

Then think about a rose, a bud, and a thorn from 2025. Notice how they're often the same thing. The work that depleted you also moved something forward. The relationship that demanded everything also gave you everything. The choice that cost you something also built something.

And if you're feeling up for it: have an authentic connection with someone about it. Not a polished story. Just what's true. The kind of conversation that doesn't happen at most tables.

Time scarcity that comes from emptiness? Cut, prioritize, protect.

But time scarcity that comes from fullness? The solution isn't to do less. It's to recognize what you're choosing.

If choosing is easy, if nothing competes for your time, if you never feel torn, then that might mean you're not building anything worth the weight.

But if you look at your year thinking I wish I could have been in three places at once, that's not necessarily failure.

That's what it costs to live a life so full, you can't do it all.

Your time wasn't stolen. You spent it on what mattered. You're still showing up.

Now own what you chose.

I'd flown in from Seattle a few hours before that dinner. Arrived tired. Probably thought I'd peel out by 10, maybe 11.

When I finally looked at my phone, it was 12:44 am.

Sometimes the fullness makes time disappear. That's not lost time. That's what we're here for.

Until next Sunday,
Eric

P.S. If you're feeling overwhelmed this week, I'd love to hear what you were present for instead. Sometimes the best way to own your choices is to name them out loud.