New Year is just around the corner, and that means one thing: it’s time for my annual recap of the year.

If I needed to describe 2025 in one phrase, I’d probably say that’s it was a year of trying out new things and gaining various experiences. Here’s a short list of new activities I’ve done this year: I finally learned to ride a bike (I’m 28 btw); overcame my fear of horses and rode one; went to a harvest festival; did some renovations in my bedroom and painted my wardrobe; grew my own vegetable garden with pumpkins and sunflowers (and a bunch of other veggies as well, I’ve just always dreamed about growing those two in particular); visited a ballet; changed my hairstyle and cut some bangs; had a bonfire night with making s’mores; tried ramen and trdelnik and absolutely loved it. I’m pretty sure there’s been more but I am tired to remember it now. I’m usually a little anxious when it comes to trying out new things, even those I really want to, so every time it was a challenge for me. One thing that helped me was the “do it for the plot” approach. I just imagined how cool it’d be if I tried whatever I wanted to, how it’d make my “life film” richer and more interesting, and this perspective worked for me.

I think I say this every year, but I feel like in 2025 I started understanding life a little better. One day I just realized that I have always been looking at life through rose-colored glasses, and now someone has taken them off. It doesn’t mean that now I see life in darker colors, thinking it’s bad. No, I still try to notice the best in everything and everyone. But for years I’ve been trying to justify wrong things, wrong people and their attitude, their reason of doing bad stuff, saying that maybe they don’t do it on purpose or don’t realize it blah blah blah. I’d always had disputes with my mom on this topic, and now I finally understood what she was saying for years. There’s a quote that says: “you know that you’ve really grown up and matured, when you realize that your parents were right all along”. So, I guess I can say that now I’m a little more mature haha.

I’ve had more realizations this year, I just can’t think of anything important right now. But I guess if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you already know about my “discoveries”, cause I usually love sharing them in here. It’s just funny how you live your life, thinking one way, and then bam! A new enlightenment comes to you and you start looking at things from a different perspective. I guess that’s the whole point of life, you just pass it like a game, going from one level to the next one, gaining wisdom, skills, knowledge and experience on the way.

This year was generally chill in a good way. It did have its problems and difficulties, but they weren’t as bad as the last couple of years, for which I’m really thankful. Though if I look globally, the world is becoming more and more messed up. Sometimes it feels like people are doing everything on purpose in order to destroy our home. AI is becoming more vital and necessary than everything human, but that’s a whole other topic I’ll cover one day. I guess in times like this, when things get mad and difficult in the world, it becomes much more important to wind down, disconnect from the news and constant flow of negativity, create your safe space, trying to make your life as joyful and peaceful as possible. You can’t constantly stress about things you don’t control, it will only poison your own life. What you can do, is simply be good and do good deeds, trying to improve whatever is in your hands.

I guess that’s all I wanted to say for this post. I’m grateful to 2025 for all its good and fun times, for people that were surrounding me, making my life better and more fun, for the interesting days I’ve had, beautiful things I’ve seen, new experiences, a bunch of new books, TV shows, movies and songs that make my life wholesome and are as important for me, as real-life experiences. I’m also thankful for the hard days and bad moods because without those we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the good part. And, of course, they are the biggest teachers that lead us to the right path.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. May it be good, kind, jolly and peaceful to all of us!