St. Patrick’s day has always been an excuse to go out, drink, and let loose. Tuesday night? Sure, why not. We’ll call in sick on Wednesday, or just suffer through. Right?

This year, at least for myself and a city-full of others, things feel a little bit different.

Sometime after college, when programming went from “something I did” to “all I think about”, I noticed something about myself. No matter what I’m doing, I’m always trying to optimize. I’m not even talking about code: I’m talking about walking to the kitchen. I have thoughts like “if I’m in the kitchen to do X, I should do Y too to save a trip”, like the 4 second walk from the kitchen back to my desk is the difference between life and death. It’s what I’m programmed to do: find inefficiency and optimize it away.

This really is a blessing in disguise. It’s the only way I can juggle a full-time job, a company, and running 90 miles/week training for Boston. Most people would crack: somehow I’ve optimized my life enough to make it sustainable.

But now, it’s 2026, and we have a new player in the game: AI agents. The thing about agents is that they supercharge human output. And for us seeking the absolute limits of productivity, we’ve become slaves to the tokens. There’s always this nagging thought, deep down, thinking “what could I be running right now”. At first I thought I was alone in this. Then I started seeing it everywhere:

(You should go read Nikunj’s post)

Nikunj put a name to it: Token Anxiety. That constant, low-level question in the back of your mind: what should be running right now?

The issue is that we can’t turn it off. Even tonight. St. Patrick’s Day used to be one of those socially accepted pauses. A night where no one expected you to be productive. You could just… log off.

Before agents, that “what could I be doing right now” feeling was limited by, well, being human. It’s impossible to output Garry Tan’s 10k-LOC/day because we’re limited by our brain’s need for other things. Food, sleep, emotional connection, all the things that make us human. But the agents? They can fly as long as they have an unchecked box.

The issue is that someone has to tell them what to do next.

No matter what, it feels like we’re all falling behind. We look at people like Peter Steinberger, shipping 220 thousand contributions, and feel like our measly 2000 will never suffice.

Every week, there’s a new company getting acquired for a billion dollars, a new model that will make our agents more robust, and a new method for maximizing their productivity. It’s impossible to keep up.

So instead of fully checking out, you half-check out. You go out, but you keep one eye on your phone. You tell yourself you’ll just enjoy the night, but maybe you’ll kick off one more thing when you get back. Or before bed. Or right now, quickly, since “it’ll only take a second”. It’s harder to let go when there’s always something that could be running. Harder to justify doing nothing when “nothing” has an obvious opportunity cost.

St. Patrick’s Day hasn’t changed. The bars are still full. The drinks are still green.

But the feeling is different.

This year, we’re not drowning ourselves in green beer. We’re drowning ourselves in tokens.

Disclaimer: I don’t live in San Fransico. Heck, I’ve never even been. But “St. Pattys in Detroit” just doesn’t have the same ring to it