2025: Wins and Losses

In Retrospect.

By now you may have seen a lot of buzz on social media about how someone’s year has gone by. By design, social media is supposed to project highlights. The struggles that a person endures in a year are rarely popularized because everyone is looking for some motivation/inspiration. For some folks, it’s more about one-upping others by projecting what the things that could buy, the places that they could travel and the food that they could have.

I have no intention of inspiring or demotivating anyone through this post. I have learned that highlights make up for roughly 20% of my year, and those are incredible times. In some cases, they clearly outweigh the remaining 80%, which is a mix of a mediocre life and bad times. Bad times are rarely as bad as we assume them to be, unless it’s a drastic life event.

What went well this year? I got married to the person I love. I consider it a bit of an achievement because most people I know have to face failure with this. Families and society do not agree to the communion more often than not. In our case, we had to fight our families not because they didn’t agree, but because we were not ready to comply with a culture that is heavily tilted towards exchange of valuable items such as gold and jewellery. This was a no-go for us because no matter how liberal a family is, I have seen the girl’s side of the family face immense performance pressure in a wedding, where even if the smallest things go wrong, they are blamed and sometimes berated.

We won our case and are now enjoying what they call “marital bliss”.

I also read about 10 fiction and non-fiction books, as well as 8 manga books this year. In total, this has been the most number of books I have read since 2015 may be? I used to read a lot but the last decade had kind of blunted that knife. I was almost always busy with work and my free time was more recovery than anything else. 2025 was transformative in that way. In fact, I finished reading ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir at 2 am this morning. To me this is a different form of commitment towards my favorite hobby.

I moved cities for a new job and I am loving every bit of it. Bangalore has its problems but no city is immune to them anymore, but I like the fact that there are many opportunities to grow in different directions, be it professionally or personally. Growth is a theme that I resonate with and stagnation is what led me to switch. I now work in the semiconductor domain, which has a lot of potential.

The list of what didn’t go well this year is longer.

I didn’t run as much as I wanted to this year. I attribute this to my laziness. I am the culprit and no reasons are justified. But I have a plan in place for next year, which I will get to and hopefully attain the fitness levels and endurance that I have always wanted. Step 0: Improve my sleep and sleep timings.

I also didn’t travel a lot, apart for moving cities and a back-and-forth between Pune and Bangalore for my wedding. We as a couple have gone through a lot of transition this year, and most of our conversations were either when we were hot-headed or when we were annoyed by others being hot-headed. The way we found relaxation and rest was at home. Again, things are going to change in 2026 and we plan to travel more, now that the big changes are behind us.

I realize that while I am at a senior role professionally, I still haven’t walked the talk. It’s one thing to rise in the corporate ladder and another to prove that you deserve it. I know that I do, but I know that there’s an element that is completely missing from what I project to others. Maybe it is my communication style, or perhaps it is my strategic effort towards things. I have more to work on next year.

Talking about communication, I need to learn how to communicate so that people want to listen (Is that also a title of a book?). It has been my Achilles heel for the past couple of years now. Time to shake things up and if needed, I might take a course or two on the topic.

I started learning German at level B1 again last year, and I think that in 2026 I will finally get to a stage where I can converse fluently. But I am not there yet. The course cost me around 30000 rupees, but I am yet to justify the money put in through my consciuous efforts.

That’s it. That’s all for 2025. See you next year!