Plans to Thrive in 2025
Looking back with fondness and ahead with trepidation
The year 2024 was much easier on me personally than the year 2023. Neither where I lived nor where I worked changed during the year. For the first time since childhood, I achieved my reading goal of 25 books, completing 26 tomes over the course the year. And I did not have to file any insurance claims for theft!
With the exception of my book benchmark, I prefer to think of my goals for each new year as intentions rather than hard metrics. Looking back at the goals for myself I published exactly a year ago, it’s easy to see why.
As anticipated, I fell well short of my aim to publish to this Substack each week. However, I am proud of the work I accomplished here. Highlights include:
Exposing Seneca Scott’s unregistered charity, Neighbors Together Oakland (which he continues to brand as a 501(c)3 despite a cease and desist order from the state)
Investigating online rumors about the cousin of Kim Jong Un holding a U.S. federal security clearance
Documenting blatant violations of California’s prohibition on housing voucher discrimination across Craigslist
Paying witness to the death of the Oakland Athletics
Finally, I sold a piece of writing for the first time, a goal which I had been working toward since starting I’ve Ben Thinking. As of this week, you can find my essay The Absence of Silence in Notre Dame Magazine both online and in print.
Though that essay didn’t run until early 2025, I sold it in the final quarter of 2024, and I hope to use that as a springboard to motivate myself to both post more frequently to IBT and to pitch editors more frequently with the goal of growing my portfolio. I spent years telling myself I just needed to sell the one piece to break through, and now that I did it, I have no more excuses.
I am doing my best to feel optimistic after a year in which my own life was stable, but I fear 2025 will be more 2023 than 2024. As I pursue law school and move into my much scarier Late Twenties and their corresponding implication of maturation, it is clear to me that the next 12 months will bring significant changes in where I live, how I spend my time, and the image I have of myself.
My personal turmoil is only heightened by the knowledge that my country has entered its darkest political situation of the century (so far), with fascists, racists, sexists, and overall morons in charge of responding to the ongoing climate crisis, the strengthening of the American oligarchy, and the utter decay of all forms of mass media.
I feel genuine fear for so many people and communities I know and love.
But my most steadfast goal for 2025 — and the rest of my life — is not to give into despair. I hate the types of people who remark on social media about how everything is getting worse. So what? Anger and sadness and frustration without direction has consumed me before and will consume me again, and while the problems we face are too big for any one person to fix, there is always something I can do to make the world a better place.
My personal preference is to continue to double-down on my efforts to assist immigrants in receiving the legal services they need as part of the fabulous organization NorCal Resist, but it is so important to find your thing. Plant a community garden. Meet your neighbors. Make art. Clean the beach. Attend a city council meeting. Register people to vote. Any contribution to your community and to your life is a positive contribution to the world. There is no financial threshold or project scope you need to meet to make a difference.
I have a few other goals for 2025 that I will share for posterity. I want to journal more often, as I believe writing for myself first will improve the quality of the writing I share with you, my reader. I want to make a final decision about law school and continue my Arabic lessons to the point that I can hold a simple conversation with a native speaker.
I would also like to eat less sugar, spend less time rewatching and more time experiencing new media, listen to more albums in their entirety, feel the sun on my skin whenever possible, stop adding “lol” and “haha” to texts just because I worry the text sounds rude otherwise, spend an entire weekend losing myself in a good video game, bike the Bay Bridge, visit a new country, cook more, improve my posture, and take more photos.
Perhaps some of my goals resonated with you, or perhaps I came off like a raving lunatic. Regardless, I would love to hear what ambitions you have for your own 2025.
And finally, whether you have been reading since 2020 or 2024, thank you. Nothing fills me with joy quite like hearing how people react to what I post. It is truly an honor to be invited to your inboxes.
Things I Enjoyed in 2024
Books
As stated above, I actually completed my reading goal this year, finishing 26 books. I made a conscious effort to read more fiction, which, as you’re about to see, paid off. I also delved into the world of audiobooks for the first time, listening to three of the books I finished this year through the Hoopla app from my library. All methods of book consumption are valid in my eyes.
As in years past, I’m sharing my five favorites from the books I finished in 2024:
Blindness by by José Saramago
Sahara Unveiled by William Langewiesche
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Private Equity by Carrie Sun
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Movies
I logged a nice, even 100 entries on Letterboxd in 2024. But after filtering out short films, miniseries, and documentaries, that figure drops to 82 movies seen in 2024, which is my lowest total since joining the site. Unlike books, through which I can progress steadily during commutes and before bed, I go through boom-and-bust cycles with movies, having weeks where I will watch multiple films and then weeks where I won’t watch any at all.
Of the 82 movies I saw in 2024, there were my five favorites:
Don't be surprised if I steal some of your resolutions for when I do my own recap. Beautiful and genuine as always. Here's to journaling and making decisions about law school in 2025 ✨️