Life: Your personal year in review for 2025

My personal philosophy has shifted from stoicism to pragmatism. It seems like, for the most part, (and this is coming from a N. American perspective) the more things seem to get worse out there, paradoxically, I feel at ease. Keyword being seems. I've become more aware about myself, how I do things, how I react to situations, and that should be well enough. I've turned inward, in a sense. For my personal hobbies, this has been the best year on record, learned a ton of new skills, broadened my personal growth in areas I've shied away from/neglected over the years. I've learned to embrace "monotasking" instead of being a clunky omni-handed Frankenstein. Of course, I would hope things get better "out there", but by the way things are going, perhaps the best thing for myself is to continually improve upon myself and share these skills of mine with those who are also willing to expend that same energy.

Good thread -- I'd say that my/our success is that we brought a smiling, active one year old to her second year, and she's already stringing great big sentences together.

Yesterday's favorite was: "No bath, no diaper. I sit in the poop ok. Bye bye"

The rest of the break is being spent potty training, so it feels like we're entering back into the Thunderdome.

I've spent the past year developing a dumb AI product for a dumb company trying to get on the AI hype train and it's been awful. We've completed 5ish years worth of work in 2 years. I'm exhausted and there's no end in sight. They're paying me really well, but I would gladly split my salary in half and do half the work if I could just get them to hire someone to help me.

There are plenty of good things in my life, I just wish my job was background noise instead of front and center of my every day. Instead it seems like my actual life has become background noise.

So this year was the final straw for a lot of issues I've let fester in my life. And it mostly stems from spending the last few years at my family's joke of a company, hoping that the Hard Work Fairy to come down and make the misery mean something. Well I've now fully destroyed my physical, mental, social and financial well being and I'm getting the sense that the Hard Work Fairy isn't real.

So, handing in my resignation on Friday and will be out by the end of Jan. They don't get to say that I walked out in the busiest period of the year, but everyone is stretched so thin that I don't think psyco and lapdog will even consider a proper handover. So online and WhatsApp store, international customers, the chemical and cosmetic suppliers, the branded products wholesaler, tech subscriptions, the SAMBA server, and the crypt of IT infrastructure they refuse to upgrade can all take care of themselves.

I have money on them calling me for the next six months asking if I'm ready to come back to work.

I'm sharing this here because I can't exactly voice this to anyone besides my wife. The family reputation is something that is pretty potent and if my last walk-out back in 2011 is any indication, I don't think anyone would be particularly interested in my side of this story. Especially not if I say that I'm actually happy and hopeful for the first time in a very long while.

So here's to 2026.
If it's worse than 2025, then I'm convinced I actually did die back in 2018 and I'm descending through layers of eternal torment.

All things considered, 2025 wasn't a bad year. I've definitely had worse years. But recency bias and situations initially made it seem like this was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

Yeah, work was a lot stressful during the first half of the year (I'm a US federal employee...), but it mellowed out a lot by summer. And I got a good deal of mental relief once I got out of probation back in the fall. I can no longer be fired for merely being a probationary employee. Theoretically, anyway *shrug*.

But I also started understanding my role at work and how I fit into things. Most of the imposter syndrome started melting away. I don't know everything, but neither do my coworkers. I'm learning new skills, which is what I wanted most out of this job. I like who I work with, I like who I work for (in the immediate sense...don't really care for the folks at the tip-top, for obvious reasons), I like what I do. Only thing that'd make it even better is going back to a hybrid schedule...And also getting rid of those assholes running the government...

On the personal side, it was actually a lot more fun that I thought it was going to be. I traveled a lot more than I expected. I took eight or nine trips this year, almost all pleasure; only one for work. And about half were to places I hadn't been before. I went from coast to coast to coast.

I was able to do that because my financial situation is solid. Even during the government shutdown, when I was furloughed and didn't get paid for six weeks (we got backpay), I realized I could survive on my own for like 3-4mo without income, if necessary. I never thought I'd be able to do that. Plus, paid off another student loan -- made the final payment yesterday!

Still forever alone, but that's not a huge concern for me. I have my family, I have my friends. They're all still doing well and I still have strong relationships with them all.

In the end, I survived 2025. Which I know for some, maybe even many, is already a strong achievement. But I think I did more than that this year. So 2025 turned out to be a good year for me. I hope 2026 is just as good if not better.

Nice idea :) I'll focus below on my mindset instead of hobbies and career.

I think a major shift this year for me occurred in my recognition of time. I suspect strongly it is related to my turning 30 next year. I don't necessarily see life in a way that many others describe as flying by, on the contrary I find the year goes quite slowly, but I have begun to have an increasing appreciation as to the shortness of life. Fortuitous, I suppose, even if it does seem a bit silly as I may have several decades left.

I have also definitely become less rigid and stubborn, particularly with the way I relate to others. I've managed to develop healthier ways of seeing others, I guess, and have learned recently to just chill out a bit more than I normally would.

And, perhaps the most recent change, I've also began to wind down massively how much I read the news, or, at least, "negative" news. I used to enjoy politics a lot, but, upon reflection, the toil of trying to engage in so many different stories throughout the world is significant. Why shouldn't I instead simply focus on the community around me, as that's where I spend my time.