Reflecting on my diary on the last day of 2025, I came across the first page listing my way of life for this year. I think I had captured some written words that resonated with my thoughts from some blog.
I want to walk more alone, with my thoughts or with someone who matters. I don’t want to sprint through life this year — I want to notice. I want to build a way of life. Focus on what feeds the soul. Focus only on what brings meaning and joy. This year, I want less noise, less rushing, and more presence. I want to say yes to what matters and no to distractions. This year I choose a way of life — not numbers, not achievements. I want a meaningful life that I can sustain.
Since 2025 was another year of break for me, I had lots of time to go slow, reflect on life and experience some of the leisures of life.
Listing some of the highlights of this year for me:
Reading
Completed 17 books — 3742 pages.
67% fiction and 33% non-fiction.
Special mention: No Longer Human, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Welcome to Hyunam-dong Bookshop
Fitness
Covered 1883.7+ kms (majorly cycling and some bits of walking)
128 activities | 152 hours invested
Did not attempt Pandharpur cycling.
Damaged my iWatch, so could not track September and October. November and December — didn’t do much.
Experiences
I had set a goal to go on interesting experiences with friends and family — and did manage to do so.
Went to musical events and theatre with friends and family.
Enjoyed lots of standup comedy with friends, sisters and myself.
Spent a lot of time with kids in general.
Travelled with friends.
My top experience for the year was volunteering at a school in a remote village for more than 2 months. An absolute pleasure and an amazing learning experience (deserves multiple posts of its own). If I start writing about it here, it will end up as book and not a post. 🙂
Next best is theatre — I think I have fallen in love with it and want to watch more plays, read more plays and at some point do theatre workshops.
Other aspects
Love for learning: Explored this aspect to the fullest. Having said that, there is so much more to explore in terms of what to do and how I do it.
Board games: Shared my love for board games with others around me and with school kids.want to do it even more.
Book club: Started a book club with friends, had monthly meets, enjoyed talking about books and simply chatting about characters and stories. Discontinued when I travelled to J&K. I will mark it as partially done.
Meditation & Solitude: Managed to do it on and off, and experienced a lot of solitude in the mountains and mostly being with myself. I simply loved it and reaffirmed my belief that my brain works brilliantly when I am on my own.
Blogging: Managed to write 16 blog posts. My pending list is still quite long. But I will say — well done for a first attempt. I need to be more consistent on this front as I plan to take this forward.
Podcast: None
Travel: None (beyond volunteer-related travel)
Running: Wanted to start running again — did not attempt. But I have lost 8 kgs, so with some strength training I think I can start again.
ABC & EBC: Still pending.
Learning Organic Farming: Started an online course but dropped out. Did not complete.
AI Course: Joined a course on AI, again dropped out after the first lecture
Beginning of the year I was in love with AI (ChatGPT), by mid-year was out of it, and now for the last two months it’s out of sight and mind. Though my loyalties are with Claude for learning and researching, and I think that will continue.
Managed to complete one whole year without social media. No account on Instagram or Facebook. Though a handful of times, I have to confess, I did doom-scroll on YouTube. But that was limited. I am quite happy about this aspect and will continue the streak next year.
I wanted to see how well I actually lived up to my 2025 vision board, so I asked AI to compare it with this year’s reflection. Here’s what it came up with.
also flattered me with below beautful lines …
Then I asked it to play a role of a strict teacher and review my performance. And this fellow came up with some beautiful lines.
My verdict
2025 didn’t give me a trophy, but it gave me stories, laughter, mountains, books and kids.
Signing off …
Urvi goes experimenting 