The Weirdest (And Best) Year Of My Life

Quick one today. Perfect to finish the weirdest (and best) year of my life.

My 2025 was like if hope and despair had an ugly, yet beautifully romantic love child.

It all began a little earlier than January. In September 2024, I decided to quit my job and do what I always wanted to do: travel the world.

At this point, I was exhausted from a family feud bridging more than ten years. During this time, I didn't really go on holiday that much. I was anxious about not being able to respond in time if something came up. It turns out your nervous system needs a little more time to calm down after something so intense and personal encumbered you for so long.

A change of scenery would do the trick, I was sure! In January, I set out on the adventure of a lifetime.

Ever since I can remember, I loved visiting other countries and immerse myself in their cultures. The world is a wild place, and I've fallen in love with it all over again.

But not all was well. Even though I was traveling alone, some unwanted companions joined, or rather had never left: your problems.

The problem with your problems is they follow you wherever you go. In my case, my problems were mostly self-made. It was just a story I was telling myself over and over again. The crux is that it feels unsafe letting go of baggage you had for so long because it almost became part of you.

In that way, it's naive to think going away cleanses you of the demons that haunt you. Jon Kabat-Zinn has a book with the title "Wherever you go, there you are". Accurate.

The external world has an influence on your inner world, but you can be in the most beautiful place on earth and still be miserable. It's the quality of your inner world that decides how good your life is.

Yet in some kind of weird twist, going away is what gave me the distance to rewire everything.

Going far away will not cleanse you. In my case, it wasn't the beautiful scenery. It was distance from the microcosm all of us live in. The act of traveling doesn't heal unresolved issues by itself, but it creates the space for your inner world to clean itself out. This happens in form of realizations and such. So much what I considered truths were nothing but stories made up by other people. Their perception had become mine.

Realizing this is the first step toward freedom, because when you're aware of the movie you live in, you can rewrite the script to your liking. I've done a lot of rewriting in the last couple of months, and let me tell you something: people don't like it when you change the role they're used to you being in. But that's ok, because you're not meant to be an extra in their film. You're meant to charter your own path.

That's exactly what I've done this year. I've found much more than I've searched for, yet have also never felt so lost. But by putting one foot in front of the other, things suddenly start to click. In the words of the master himself:

“When you start to walk on the way, the way appears”
– Rumi

All the best in 2026, make it the greatest year of your life!

Tommy