Reflections on 2025 and Looking Forward to 2026

I was talking with someone from work this morning. He shared with me a personal project and what he’s looking to learn from it. This is common for people in my line of work to have a side project or two that they poke and occasionally share with others. I do this too. (This very site is one of said projects.) I had mixed feelings while listening to him, and I’m trying to reflect on why.

One feeling was excitement that he’s trying things / approval of what he’s doing / familiarity with the exercise. The other feeling is much darker, and it’s the idea that this person doesn’t realize there is a storm coming and what he’s doing and learning isn’t going to prevent the damage it brings.

Why do I have such pervasive negative thoughts? Is it my own fear of the uncertainty that AI brings to my work? Is it that feeling that I’ve had for years now: that I’m likely not as important to my organization as my organization thinks I am, and one day they are going to realize it, and I’m going to be SOL?

The funny thing is that this year, I’ve been just as excited about side projects - moreso than ever - as many barriers have been broken with AI at my fingertips. I don’t have to do tutorials to learn how to do something just to create something else. I can just speak things into existence. It’s incredible. It’s like all that other work was throwaway effort.

I think about the big shift decades ago of people who got into print design and never bothered to learn the digital tools. What took hours before now took minutes or even seconds. I feel like that’s happening to me now - do I need to learn to code? If I were just starting out today, how would I approach this? I can’t hold on to the little moments of glory I had in the past where I did something really cool because I was one of the few who knew how to do it. I have to adapt. I don’t want to be left behind.

I’ll take a break and bring up something I noticed about myself. I think people at work think I’m thoughtful. I think I have developed some kind of habit in how I express things on my face to make it look like I am really mindful of what people are saying, and that I have lots of thoughts running through my head and I’m just carefully curating what I say back in response. The truth is many times I don’t have anything to say, no independent thought, no opinions, and/or I may not even fully understand what people are talking about. I can’t believe this form of facial expression has gotten me as far as it has. I need to pull my kids aside one day and teach them about self-awareness.

2040 is just 15 years away. I’ve got a whole house to pay for, and likely some college bills, and probably a vehicle replacement over that time period.

I’ve got some other things to sort out too. I’m fat. I consume way too much. I’ve developed an addiction to brain rot, and I’ve conflated watching youtube videos about success with making progress.

I need to embrace the nothing. Slow down. Be bored, then create. Read another book or two (grateful to have done this in 2025 - can’t see I prioritized that most of my adult life). Withdraw from things every once in a while. Sugar included. Write. Let the brain find connections again. Install new wiring. Light it up.

What I noticed this year, and will be purposeful about going forward - I need to be careful about personal influences in life. Learn to identify when others aren’t being their ideal self, and not let their bad days affect my own.

Additionally, I need to be aware of my procrastination tells. Once I started paying attention, I’ve realized I’ve avoided work in laughably bad ways. Example: I need to read a report someone wrote. Before I start, I need to use the bathroom. I sit down again, but now I need a glass of water. I sit down again, but now I need to know what’s in the news. I close that tab. I need to get a snack now. Sit back down. My chair is uncomfortable - let’s ask Youtube what most comfortable office chair is. And on and on. Like, really?

I need to do my job, and jobs aren’t meant to be fun. As one boss put it, that’s why they call it a job. My hope is that realizing this about myself is a good thing. I can reset, and find satisfaction out of completing tasks rather than these artificial dopamine hits.

So that’s where my head’s at.