New Year, Same Me- 5 Takeaways from 2024.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I have a lot to be grateful for. Here are my reflections on the year and my takeaways.

I got married and had a party.

In a non-religious, western culture, I find myself longing for more ritual. Ritual is an opportunity to mark time and create a shared human experience that sticks in our memory. Weddings, birthdays, funerals, and Christmas are these opportunities for me, and arguably the biggest one is a wedding. I don’t think the idea of marriage is important to me—I felt like I had made the commitment to my now-wife long before the wedding. But getting married was a wonderful opportunity for ritual, to celebrate ourselves with those we love most. It’s an excuse to gather, and it’s so worthwhile. Reflecting on whether I feel different about the relationship now than I did before, I would say yes. The buildup to a wedding, the wedding itself, and the lingering aftereffects are an opportunity to ruminate on your relationship. It’s like positive reinforcement and affirmations that you are together and you do love each other. Sitting in that headspace, fussing about a wedding, has left me on the other side with greater appreciation for what I have.

I stumbled my way through work and was brave.

Work was very difficult for me this year, and I found myself affected by it in ways that changed my mood and self for the worse. It began to influence other aspects of my life—I was just a bit highly strung, dissatisfied, and grumpy. Making the big decision not to continue was not simple. I think it took most of the year to build up the courage. It was incredibly easy to say no to something in my 20s, but the opportunity cost in your 30s is bigger. I was on a good career trajectory, with good organisation, earning money. It’s been big to step away from something good. It clearly was bad for me, but it was good too. I wish life were more black and white, but the trade-off are nuanced sometimes significant. Deciding is really not easy. So it’s brave to say no to something for yourself, but the longer you’re in it, the braver you must be.

I experienced kindness, and created a new benchmark for it.

I visited New York for work, and a friend of a friend whom I had not met offered his spare room to me. Not only that, he had to travel and could only stay the first night with me—for the next seven nights, I had the place to myself. This in itself is kindness. He did this because he wanted to meet more people and make meaningful connections. We went for a long walk and dinner, and with the precursor of generosity, we shared openly and vulnerably. There was so much space for one another in our interaction—it was a deeply human experience. There is kindness in material terms; we can be generous. But there is a deeper kindness, which I found in New York, to connect, listen, and be vulnerable with a new friend. This is the definition of kindness I’m taking forward in 2025. Less transactional, seeking authenticity.

I read nine books by one author, and I had the best time.

I read thee separate fantasy series by Mark Lawrence. I’m grateful to mark for writing these, as these were the moments in 2024 when I felt truly relaxed. I look fondly back at the many hours on the couch. What reading fiction gave me was a break from a frantic experience of pace. The books forced a slowness onto me. The world seems obsessed with a fast-paced environment. I find myself in a digital world either creating or consuming. A win for me in 2025 will be more focus, less distraction. But it will also be about finding a slowness. Things need not be done immediately. Reading can take time. I’ve become more anxious than I would like to admit, and I think it lies here—in the spaces I occupied when I was not reading: creating, consuming.

I paddled a feisty kayak.

Over two years back I arrived in Barbados with three kayaks: an easy, an intermediate, and an advanced. They get thinner and faster, but less stable. Only in the last few months have I felt comfortable in the advanced one. That’s taken 18 months of fairly routine use. Physical progress is a wonderful marker of accomplishment. It’s a great way to feel good about yourself. If nothing else went well, at least you moved your body and can see your progress over time. 2025 will be about prioritising physical health, with reason being psychological- finding pride in personal development that is most obvious to spot. With some routine, you’ll become faster or stronger, and that’s a wonderful sense of achievement for me. Plus, it’s important to experience the physical world in a digital age, and experiencing your body moving — and the progress it makes when doing so — is the best way I’ve found to do that.

Summarised, here are my takeaways:

Your other-half is your biggest decision, celebrate it.
Being authentic to yourself requires bravery.
The deepest kindness is to create genuine human connection.
Deal with anxiety, find slowness in a fast-paced world.
Utilising your body is an easy way to see yourself making progress.

I’m taking these as priorities into 2025. Here’s my statement of intent:

In 2025, I will be brave to be authentic, be kind, find slowness, be disciplined in my body- and share & celebrate the journey with Liz.

Wishing you a great 2025 - one full of authentic bravery, kindness, slowness, in your body, and with the ones you love.

Warwick

You can now reply to this email directly. I’ll see you next year.