Reflections

As we stand at the cusp of 2025 and step into 2026, I felt the need to pause and reflect, not just on the past year, but on how life itself has shifted over the last few years. The twists, turns, mistakes, coincidences, and choices. Some mine, some others’, some simply happenstance that shaped where I am today and, ultimately, who I am becoming.

This year was a year of endings. Some were painful, some strangely liberating. It was also a year that shattered many delusions, about myself, about people, and about the paths I thought my life was supposed to take. Delulu is not the solulu, as they say, and this year made that painfully clear. But clarity, even when it hurts, is still a gift.

It wasn’t all loss. I finished my master’s program. I made new friends. I pushed my limits. I completed several projects, started many more, and finally began this blog. I wrote a lot. I read a lot. I also broke ties with people I once believed were friends, and even family. Looking back, this year marked a decisive step toward living as my true, authentic self.

One of the hardest struggles this year was forgiveness. The sense of betrayal overshadowed everything. They say there is no love without forgiveness, and no forgiveness without love and perhaps, somewhere along the way, I fell out of love. Love in relationships, friendships, and family alike.

There were days when I didn’t want to exist. In those moments, I reminded myself of an Arabic saying
“If you feel like dying, throw yourself into the sea and you’ll find yourself fighting to survive.”
The meaning is simple but profound. You don’t truly want to stop existing, you want to kill something within you. An identity, a belief, a version of yourself that no longer serves you.

One of the biggest realizations this year was this to not mold yourself to fit into other people’s value systems. Create your own and live by them. If something isn’t happening in your life, maybe it’s because that’s not what life wants from you. There are countless things that are going right, but I was so fixated on what wasn’t happening that I stopped appreciating what was.

That misery came from comparison basically from perceiving a lack in my own life. I wasted an enormous amount of time focusing on the wrongs instead of the rights. The lesson here was simple but transformative "STOP COMPARING!!"

A dear friend of mine, Puneeth, recently told me something profound “Focus on your work. Give it your 100%, no less, no more. If things work out well and good and if they still don’t work out, accept it and move on. Maybe life has something else planned for you.” That reminded me of a verse from the Bhagavad Gita I read years ago "Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana" which loosely translates to "You have the right to your  actions, not to the fruits of those actions"

For far too long, my focus was on the fruits, the outcomes, relationships, recognition rather than the actions themselves. That attachment bred greed, expectation, and ultimately, a sense of lack. When things don’t go according to plan, the better question isn’t “Why is this happening to me?” but “What is life trying to teach me?”

At my lowest, I turned inward. I began reading religious texts and stumbled into Vedic astrology not to predict my future, but because uncertainty makes us cling to anything that offers a sense of order. After studying it extensively, I realized that even astrology isn’t about certainty, it’s about lessons. Planetary placements symbolize unresolved karma the things you are meant to confront, learn from, and grow through in this life.

I don’t often speak openly about my belief systems. As someone rooted in science, I’m aware of the ridicule that follows such admissions. I remain agnostic about it but deeply fascinated. If something resonates with you and harms no one else, it doesn’t need external validation. If it makes sense to you, then it makes sense to you, period.

I also made mistakes this year. I crossed boundaries while joking with a friend. My intent was harmless but the impact wasn’t. I truly regret that. One sentence from that conversation stayed with me
“I don’t care about your intent. I only care about the impact it had on me.”
That line reshaped how I approach accountability. I even found myself using it later in another difficult conversation because it’s true.

As I move into this next year, my goals are simple, to read more, write more, complain less, turn my blogs into video, finish the project i started to a logical conclusion and most importantly start more projects.

I’ve learned that closure isn’t something you’re given, it’s something you decide to live without. Not everything will be understood, not every hurt will be acknowledged. But forward motion doesn’t require answers, only intention. This next year isn’t about proving anything to anyone. It’s about showing up, doing the work, and letting consistency speak where words once failed.