Year in review 2025
This is my year in review post for 2025
Theme of the year 2025: Focus
I wanted to make conscious choices of my time. I wanted to concentrate on creating and actively doing. Professionally I wanted to concentrate on the things I am really good at. In personal life I wanted to have more concious choosing where I spend my time. Here are some things that I specifically wanted to concentrate on:
Learning Chinese – I use apps like Skritter and Du Chinese to keep up my language learning habit. I also try to follow Chinese language podcasts and watch Chinese language TV shows to improve my understanding of the spoken language
Playing piano – I started this in January 2024 and wanted to keep on doing it and slowly improve and most of all have fun while doing it
Reading books – tried to go out of my comfort zones a bit but ended up in my happy place – cozy, optimistic sci-fi
Writing my journal – wanted to build a habit both personally and professionally writing down things the old fashioned way using fountain pen and paper
Creating order in to the universe – this is mostly gardening and organizing home but also some health and mental health stuff (more of that later)
Anything creative that is not just passive consumption
Resting – putting aside moments for just lying down in the hammock and be present with the universe
Exercise
And things I didn’t want to choose or tried to do far less than before
Doomscrolling
Being subjected to content choices of someone else, be it a human or an algorithm of any kind. Especially I tried to weed out AI slop out of my life
Excessive following of the news
Report card
I think I did pretty well on the positive side of the theme. I filled up a journal book almost to the last page. I filled up four draftbooks with my doodles and drawings. I often spent an hour in the morning concentrated in drawing and writing. Surprisingly, that ate away time for reading and piano playing – there was far less spent time doing those but I guess it is inevitable with a limited time budget someone working full time (or a bit more) has. I use Forest app to track concentrated time and limit distractions and I think this is a satisfactory result. 
Professionally I’ve been much more conscious about my time and made peace with what modern software development at enterprise customers is. I can choose my thoughts and I can imprint my choices to the software I create. Yes, there are LLMs there but whatever I release is my responsibility. And! I want to consciously know how to do things myself. These giant indeterministic calculators need human oversight and some good quality software will still be written by humans.
On the other side of the coin, I still often start my mornings by checking Bluesky and the news and start off day slightly agitated. This is something I will try to address 2026. There must be better ways to start your day than read about swings wildly at what is going on in the world. I don’t want to block out what is going on in the world and I want to be active part of building the better world. I am however convinced following the world with the speed of breaking news is not beneficial to me or actually a way to make things better.
Health and Mental Health
This year I’ve been very active making sure all the health issues that got postponed or completely forgotten during the covid years were finally taken care of. I also finally got into therapy to address my anxities. I am healthier than I started the year 2025 and I am much, much attuned to my feelings. My bad habit of ignoring or suppressing “bad” feelings has not been good for someone very good at catastrophizing. Also, it seems a lot of what I thought was anxiety was actually physical symptoms of something I had ignored. Better treatment of my existing conditions lead to better mental health.
I still have a lot to learn about myself and especially on how to control my body’s reactions to my stronger feelings but now I least have a map and person supporting me.
I added yoga to my physical routines and I have dabbled a little in meditation. My gym routine is strong and I feel very good right now. It has not been true for me always – someone living with multiple chronic diseases. Happy to feel good right now knocks wood
2025 – Year of love
Year was filled with love. I started the year dating someone, that didn’t last but was a good relationship. Like last three years I dated actively and in May I met someone I fell in love and was very happy with. Even if that relationship ended (for reasons I will not go to), I am super happy about how it filled my year with passion, friendship, laughter, and companionship. Nothing makes you happier than meeting someone that appreciates your quirky side.
I finally figured out that ethical non-monogamy is my choice. I’ve been dating people for last three years actively after break up from my second major relationship. Honesty and openness is something that is I value above all.