reflections 2025
it was a deeply self reflective year
In your life, there will be a moment when you decide to do something different. You would’ve been on a boat with all your friends, going in the same direction; you’re happy, you feel supported and secure. And one day, you decide to jump off the boat into the blue water because you’re not sure if you want to be on a boat. In the beginning, it’s refreshing. You love how the water feels on your skin; you feel alive and happy. But the sun sets, and you realise you’re alone in the middle of the ocean. It’s scary. Storms come and go, and there are big unknown things under the water. You miss your friends, you miss the stability of a boat, and the certainty of a direction. You will wonder why you chose to do things the hard way.
The thing is, it’s very easy to lose yourself in this moment, and I have, multiple times, come very close to stopping swimming altogether. But you must remember two things. You must imagine Sisyphus happy and loving the boulder. When you stop fearing the elements of the situation you chose, there is a faint inner compass that points you towards the shore, or at least a belief of a shore. The land of your dreams exists as long as you believe it does, and you must imagine that it’s not far, and you must imagine your friends are waiting for you on the shore.
Use your brain as your own algorithm. Over the course of your life, you have consumed so much information, media, literature, and experiences. In the endless pursuit of self-development, you might forget the fact that your brain is the most intelligent machine. This year, I learned to look inwards for answers, for frameworks and wisdom. But you have to be patient; you have to give your brain space and time to turn all that information into true knowledge.
Chasing rejection will get you more opportunities than not. This was mind-blowing to me as someone who has consistently chased overachievement. Chasing rejection means you are shooting your shot at the stars, but I was very surprised to find that sometimes your shot brings the stars to your backyard.
Don’t be embarrassed to admit you are striving for greatness and an exceptional life. Admitting it also means you (and others) will witness you falling short of that greatness constantly, but that’s part of the treacherous road to a well and fully lived life.
Your curiosity is the single most defining thing about you. What you are curious about is what builds the landscape of your life. It creates your tastes, your interests, your hobbies, who you love, and what you love. So it’s very important that you consistently ask yourself: what am I curious about? And how can I find out more?
Decentre your thoughts. We all want to believe our thoughts are so precious and that they define us and our lives. But I have spent more than a quarter of last year looking inwards at my thoughts, and what I have found is that they repeat themselves over and over again. The only time they have surprised me is when I have surprised them back by taking action—doing something incredibly ridiculous, wildly scary, and sometimes just silly, goofy play.
When someone tells you they love you and they are in love with you. You have a right to not believe them because you don’t feel it. It’s not their fault, it’s not yours. They don’t know yet how to make you feel loved. You don’t have to accept their reality but you have to be kind about it.
The sooner you figure out what is not the purpose of your life, the easier it becomes to make life decisions.
There will be that one person who circles back to you year after year, and you let him, because he once amused you intellectually, and you were intrigued, and an idea was born, but you never got to start something. For someone who thrives on relentlessly beating my ideas into reality, I wanted every idea to go through the process of initiation. I wanted no idea left behind. I wanted drive. I wanted momentum—to fuck around and find out, even if it were only to crash and burn. I assumed they’d feel the same drive.
The moral of this unnecessarily long story is that people are not ideas. Sometimes a person is just that: a man is just a man, and will be a man, and is best left alone.
Moving your body consistently, in whichever form you enjoy, apparently does change your life? It’s almost as if I am on mood elevators.
Your friendships will grow in and out of you, and you have to let it happen. You have to let it breathe and not panic or be angry. It is an excellent time to practise self-regulation.
If you are someone who has a lot going on in your brain at any given time but is scattered in documenting (I have four different journals at any given time, and no one, including myself, can decipher or find anything in them), Obsidian or Capacities will change your life.