25 lessons from 2025
Twenty-five reflections on growth, loss, and clarity
A year is a long time.
Long enough for versions of us to arrive, argue, leave, for certainty to soften, for questions to grow better teeth, for days to blur, for moments to burn themselves into memory. And what is a writer, if not someone who pauses life long enough to take notes? No to control or tidy it up, but to notice and stand at the edge of the experience and say, this mattered, even when no one else was looking.
If you read anything that I wrote this year, it was my act of interruption, of stopping the rush of living and writing down lessons. I am not a psycho, so I tried to live and left my laptop closed during the best moments.
Here are my 25 lessons from 2025 :
1. Remember that you are not the Titan Atlas.
I tend to whisper to myself this very often. You have likely heard of Atlas, and even use his name in everyday life when you look at a map. In Greek mythology, the Titans were an older generation of gods ruled by Cronus from Mount Othrys; they fought against Zeus and the other Olympians in the Titanomachy. This war lasted for 10 long years against the Titans, during which Atlas gradually worked his way up through the ranks, eventually becoming their leader.
However, they were defeated in a final clash by Zeus. As punishment for their involvement, the Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, an ancient, dark, and eternal place of nothingness, similar to purgatory. All except Atlas, who was condemned to bear the weight of the cosmos on his shoulders for eternity at the world’s edge. Remember, you aren’t Atlas and are not condemned to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. So, let it go, put the world down!
2. Check for Value and not Price Tag.
I have always tried to be better with my finances, but this year was one for a lot of expenses, yep... weddings are crazy expensive! One of the best ways to filter and make better financial decisions is to focus on Value rather than price, and this has influenced my vocabulary.
Cheap: Something’s Value is better than the price tag. Expensive: Something’s Value can’t justify the price tag.
Since we value different things, what is expensive or cheap is relative. Personally, I wouldn’t spend $100 on whatever Air Jordan is out, but $350 would be a steal for a Suitsupply slim beige cut. Consumerism aside, this lens helped me make sense of many decisions this year. A wedding with 500 people, including friends and family, justifies its high price tag based on the emotional significance of the occasion. For any major decision in life, look for Value, not the price tag, and you will get the best deal.
3. I change who I am to get what I want, instead of the other way around.
The typical approach most people assume is: “I’ll change what I want to match who I am”, accepting their current self as fixed and adjusting their goals or desires to fit within those constraints. If you’re shy, you pursue careers that don’t require public speaking. If you’re impatient, you avoid goals requiring long-term discipline. I am always working on myself, deliberately reshaping myself and pursuing the goals I genuinely want, rather than lowering my ambitions to match my current limitations.
I wanted a relationship but struggled with vulnerability, so I learnt to be vulnerable. I wanted to create art but feared judgment, so I learnt to be courageous. The point is to choose your destination first, then become the person capable of reaching it, rather than letting your current identity dictate where you’re allowed to go.
4. Male and female friendships are different.
This year, I saw a lot of how male friendships are built around activities or banter, the kind where no one really talks about what they’re feeling or struggling with. Still, as I leaned into creative work and emotional honesty, women started showing up in my life as friends. Not because women are inherently “better” at friendship, but because vulnerability and emotional openness tend to be more normalized in female friendships.
When I started operating in that mode, I found myself connecting with people who were already comfortable there.
We need both genders. I loved playing footy with the boys on Sunday and later having some Budweisers at mine whilst chatting about Arsenal’s bottling job and laughing at Man Utd’s misery. Still, I also went deep with my female friends about my latest essay on Substack, our current interpretation of the emotional wheel, and diving into the next Paul Feig movie.
If you are reading this, your task is to learn how to operate in both worlds.
5. Most of the things are noise.
This year, I learnt to care about a few things. I used to waste energy on what I thought I should care about. I made a list of what to focus on, and was surprised by how short it is. The path forward is to focus intensely on what actually matters: writing, teaching, a small list of people, and three other things. Everything else is noise.
Doesn’t someone like my work? Don’t care. Drama that doesn’t touch what I’m building? Let it pass. Trends I’m supposed to follow? Not interested. This also means considerably reducing what used to matter, like watching football. I am working a lot on my indifference.
I have to go deep and not wide. I care deeply about what’s mine. I can’t afford to care about the rest.
6. I hate clutter, so I embraced minimalism.
It started as a necessity. I was traveling constantly and needed a capsule wardrobe, something I could actually live out of without losing my mind. This was hard for me. I grew up loving fashion and menswear. I genuinely cared about clothes, about how things looked and fit. Cutting down felt like losing part of myself at first, but I focused on what I actually loved: beige, dark greens, browns, blacks, and greys. The colors that felt like me, not what I thought I should wear. I kept only those. With less, I stopped thinking about what to wear. I stopped managing a closet. The mental space I got back was worth more than any piece I let go.
Minimalism isn’t about deprivation. It’s about keeping only what matters and refusing to let the rest take up room in your life. My wardrobe is smaller now, but it’s more mine than it ever was when I had more. Clutter isn’t just physical. It’s mental weight. Every extra thing you own is a tiny decision you have to keep making. I don’t want to make those decisions anymore. I want my energy for the few things I actually care about.
7. Love is a choice, not a feeling.
Everyone talks about love like it’s something that happens to you, butterflies, chemistry, fate. Like you’re just along for the ride, but the most essential things in love aren’t feelings. They’re decisions. Who do you stay with? Who you leave. Who you marry. These aren’t about who makes your heart race the most. They’re about who you choose to build something with. Feelings come and go. Attraction fades and resurges. The butterflies leave. What’s left after that is whether you decide to keep showing up.
Love is just a game of commitments. I think that is why, when we see a couple still together in old age, it is the cutest thing ever; that is the strongest portrayal of commitment.
I used to think love was about finding the right person, the one who felt right, who I connected with effortlessly, but I’ve learned it’s more about deciding who you’re willing to work with, compromise with, and grow alongside.
It’s about choosing someone whose flaws you can live with and whose values align with where you’re going. This is why many don’t end up with those they love: the math isn’t “mathing”.
Decision-making is a skill, and most people enter relationships without sharpening it first. They follow their feelings and hope it works out. They don’t ask the hard questions: Is this person capable of what I need? Am I capable of what they need? Are we choosing the same direction?
Who you settle with, and I don’t mean settle for less, I mean settle down with, is less about intensity and more about intentionality.
Love isn’t something you fall into. It’s something you decide to do every day, with someone you’ve chosen on purpose.
8. I am learning to convey my emotions and thoughts through speaking.
I should have read the small print about marrying a French woman. They process things by talking. Make it double for the French part and the woman part.
This has been an adjustment.
I’m used to processing internally. Something happens, I think about it, I work through it alone, and then maybe…maybe…I’ll mention it once I’ve figured it out, and it will likely be in writing.
But she needs to talk it through. Out loud. In real time.
She’s not looking for me to have already solved it or to have a perfectly formed thought. She’s thinking by talking, and she needs me there while she does it.
At first, this felt exhausting. I didn’t understand why we had to dissect every feeling, every moment, every slight shift in mood. It felt like too much. Now, I’m learning that this is how she connects and makes sense of things. And if I want her to know me, actually know me, I have to learn to do the same.
So I’m practicing and saying things before I’ve fully figured them out. Letting her in on the process, not just the conclusion. It’s uncomfortable. I stumble. But she’s patient with me.
Turns out, speaking your emotions is a skill. And like anything else worth doing, it takes practice.
I married someone who won’t let me hide. And honestly? I probably needed that.
9. Never waste a crisis.
I learned this the hard way: whatever happens, there’s a takeaway. If things didn’t go my way, I ask myself, what did I learn? How can I use this to move forward?
Every crisis, every failure, every moment where I felt like things were falling apart, there’s fuel in there if I’m willing to look for it. I found that I can filter anger into a good run. Into an excellent writing session. The energy doesn’t just disappear; it transforms. What could have eaten me alive becomes something I build with.
Bad conversation? I run until my legs burn and my head clears. Frustration with how something’s going? I sit down and write until the words come out sharp and honest. Most people try to avoid the hard feelings, numb them, pretend they’re not there. I’ve learned to use them. Not in some toxic “channel your rage” way, but in recognizing that intensity is just energy. And energy can be redirected.
A crisis isn’t just something to survive. It’s raw material. The question isn’t whether it happened, it’s what I do with it after. I don’t waste it anymore. I turn it into movement. Into clarity. Into something that pushes me forward instead of holding me back.
10. I do things in two-hour increments.
I’ve developed a theory: two hours is enough for any significant activity. I can focus for two hours before I drop mentally. After that, I’m not really present anymore, I’m just going through the motions.
Two hours is enough for a football game. A good movie. A focused meeting. A coffee date with someone I care about. It’s enough to get deep into something without burning out.
So I structure my life around it.
Every essay I’ve written was done in two hours. Or in multiple 2-hour sessions. I don’t sit down for marathon writing sessions pretending I can sustain that kind of focus. I give it two hours of real attention, then I’m done.
I work in two-hour blocks. I create in two-hour sessions. I give people two hours of my actual attention, not five hours of me half-listening.
It’s made everything sharper. I’m not exhausted at the end of the day from pretending I can sustain focus longer than I actually can. I’m not spreading myself thin across endless commitments.
Two hours is enough to matter. Enough to make progress. Enough to connect.
Maybe I need to coin this. Call it “an Ivan” or something more innovative. A unit of focused time that actually respects how humans work instead of pretending we’re machines.
Anything more and I’m lying to myself about what I’m actually doing.
It’s hard to put rate lessons, so here are the remaining 15 lessons, and you can explore them through essays in the newsletter:
Time doesn’t heal everything: Time gives you distance from the thing that hurt. Distance is not the same as healing. You can’t skip the pain. You can’t wish it away. You can’t wait long enough for it just to disappear. But you can, over time, with effort, gradually reduce the suffering. You can stop fighting the fact that it happened. You can stop expecting yourself to be unaffected by it. You can stop treating yourself as broken because you’re still carrying it. Time gives you the chance to do this. But the doing is up to you.
You never know who is reading your work: If you're ever discouraged, wondering if anyone is reading your job or if your efforts matter, remember this: somewhere, at some point, your words will reach someone who needs them. Keep writing. Keep creating. You never know who's listening.
Your mind needs a slower pace: Learn to sit with the irrational panic and not let it drive your decisions. Learn to move forward even when your nervous system is screaming that you shouldn’t.
You are in the liminal space: Stop checking the mailbox of your future. The future is being prepared for you now, in this quiet, unseen laboratory of transition. Rest. Listen. Be. It is OK to be an unfinished work. It is OK to be uncommitted. It is OK to be lost in the wilderness between two certainties.
The three stages of gaining knowledge: Growth, in any field, doesn’t happen all at once. It follows a natural progression, a cycle of learning, questioning, and eventually transcending. The Japanese concept of Shu-Ha-Ri captures this beautifully.
How to live to the point of tears: We need to acknowledge the enormous pressure society puts on us not to live to the point of tears. We are encouraged to be emotionally temperate. We are taught that grief should be ‘gotten over’ quickly, that vulnerability is unprofessional, and that euphoria is suspicious, often followed by a crash.
The actual cost of emotional honesty: We are taught to be strong. To keep it together. To smile politely even when our insides are unravelling. Somewhere along the way, emotional control became a badge of honour. Don’t cry. Don’t get angry. Don’t show too much. As if feelings are something to manage, to suppress, to hide.
Your peace is worth protecting from your patterns: It’s easy to talk about protecting your peace from other people. From drama. From chaos. From external noise. And yes, that matters.
For one thing, my sanity is at stake: Writing itself may not solve everything; it comes with its own frustrations and failures, but it grounds me. It reminds me that clarity is possible, even in the midst of chaos. For one thing, my sanity is at stake. And for that reason, I choose, however imperfectly, to protect it now.
You don’t need to untangle every emotion to honour it: We want to forgive quickly so we don’t have to sit in anger. We want to be fine so we don’t have to sit in sadness. We want to feel brave so we don’t have to sit in fear.
But the sitting is the point. The sitting in the difficult feeling, the allowing of it, the bearing of it, that’s where transformation happens. Not because the feeling changes into something else. But because you change your relationship to it.
Before you heal, be whole: To owe yourself coherence is to commit to your own integrity. It is to live in a way that, when you look in the mirror, you recognise the person staring back. It is to be able to say, “I am not perfect, but I am real.” That is a rare thing in a world that rewards performance over presence.
There is no award for resilience: When we picture resilience, we often imagine strength in its loudest form: gritting teeth, raised fists, rising from ashes with a soundtrack playing in the background. We picture the comeback, the triumphant return, and the powerful speech delivered at just the right moment. But most of the time, resilience doesn’t look like that.
We expect joy to be loud: The fireworks, the celebrations, the breathless laughter, and the vast “YES” moments that mark life’s most significant turning points. We wait for it in milestones and finish lines. We expect it to be obvious. But joy doesn’t always announce itself.
Uncertainty is a teacher, if we let it be: When we let go of needing to know everything, something else opens up possibilities. Creativity. Flexibility. A deeper trust in our own inner compass, rather than waiting for the map. Because sometimes the map doesn’t exist. Sometimes you are writing it as you go.
You don’t have to be motivated to begin: You don’t need a lightning strike. You don’t need the perfect playlist or the grand swell of inspiration. You need to start. And once you do, even with the tiniest step, you’ll notice it, the shift, the movement, the spark you thought you had to wait for. Let that be the miracle. Not waiting. Beginning.
Made with Nano Banana And that is what a year leaves you with in the end: a lot of patterns.
Looking back, these twenty-five lessons don’t line up neatly. Some were learned the hard way, others almost by accident. A few arrived gently; most did not ask for permission, but together, they form a quiet map of who I was becoming while I was busy living.
If there is any wisdom here, it is this: life is always teaching, but it rarely announces the lesson. It waits for us to pause long enough to notice. To reread our own days. To admit that growth often looks like confusion before it looks like clarity.
I don’t expect to remember all of this next year. That’s the point of writing it down. These are bookmarks. A way of saying, this is where I was when I finally stopped and paid attention.
And tomorrow, the pages will keep turning.
Thank you!If you would like to review your year, check out my guide.
