Reflecting on Resolutions

The end of January has me feeling introspective

A few years ago, I stopped setting new year’s resolutions. I found that tying myself to a precise goal like “lose 15 pounds” or “go for a run three days per week” led to frustration rather than motivation. If I had a particularly busy week and missed my goal or crammed in some unhealthy frozen food after coming home late from work, I let the temporary detour throw me off entirely and eventually gave up on making any progress.

But I still believe the end of the year is as good a time as any to take stock of my life and figure out what is working — and what isn’t. Instead of setting concrete goals, each January I create intentions for the year ahead.

I also publish these intentions publicly. Not that I believe any of you track my progress. IBT blowing up enough that I have readers with parasocial relationships would be a good problem to have. Rather I share my intentions on my blog as a form of self-discipline. Even knowing no one else but me goes back to check on last year’s intentions, it is harder for me to ignore a post available for the world to read than it is for me to ignore a private journal entry.

The past year was unusual. I went from working full-time and living alone in a city I loved to a full-time student living with my girlfriend in a city the two of us are struggling to embrace. At my job, I was one of the few Gen Z employees. In law school, I’m old. Just 20% of first-year law students are 27 or older, and at UCLA only 12% are 28 or older.

The age difference between myself and the standard 1L is just enough for me to question whether I made a mistake in starting law school when I did. I will be 30 years old when I sit for the bar exam. That is by no means old in terms of the course of your life, but it is old to be starting fresh on a new career.

However, “make a final decision about law school” was the first and most important intention I set for myself in 2025. I followed through. I also took 59 Arabic lessons, chased the sun to Los Angeles, got completely lost in Ghost of Tsushima, biked to the Bay Bridge, cooked more, and took lots of photos.

Before I started writing this post, I assumed I made little progress toward any of my ambitions for 2025. I was feeling very down, a sentiment which was magnified by the general burnout that most students feel after the first semester of 1L, widely recognized as the hardest semester of most students’ academic careers.

And it is true that I did not succeed at all my intentions. I still add lol and haha to my texts without a reason — I must accept that I am a Zillennial. I did not visit a new country last year, but I will this year. I took a lot of Arabic lessons, but my relationship with the language feels like climbing a sand dune. I still have a major sweet tooth.

Knowing now that I accomplished more than I realized and still felt like a failure, I am resolving first and foremost to be kinder to myself in 2026. I also want to read a Spanish-language novel, find a good bike trail in West LA, learn to swim at the YMCA, continue journaling more often, play on-the-board chess, learn some basic dance steps, and try baking as a complement to the cooking adventures I embark on each week.

Most of all, I want to develop the skill of introspection. I struggle with self-reflection, relying far too much on the opinions of others to shape how I perceive myself. There is tremendous value in feedback from colleagues and loved ones, but no one can know you like you know yourself. I need to spend less time drowning out my own thoughts and more time listening to what I have to say.

What are your intentions for the year? With January coming to a close, have you moved on or adapted your goals? Let me know in the comments.

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Things I Enjoyed in 2025

Books

Each year, I share the five books and movies I enjoyed the most in the year before. The only criteria is that the book or movie has to have been new to me; just one of the books and a handful of the movies I experienced last year were actually released in 2025.

Over the prior 12 months, I finished 28 books. I believe this is the most I have read in a year since I started keeping track! I completed tomes spanning the literary universe, from graphic novels to a hyper-local history of Onondaga County that my brother found in a thrift store. After reviewing my StoryGraph account, these were my five favorite reads last year:

1. Hell Is a World Without You by Jason Kirk (five stars, must-read)

2. Health and Safety: A Breakdown by Emily Witt

3. Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel by Shahnaz Habib

4. Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga

5. The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying in Alaska by Colleen Mondor

Movies

I logged 75 entries on Letterboxd last year. After performing my usual filtering to consider only fictional movies (no documentaries, miniseries, or short films), I cut the list down to 66 diary entries for 2025. That is the lowest number since I started keeping track, which is a surefire consequence of going back to school. Of the 66 eligible films, these were my five favorites:

1. The Long Walk

2. Anora

3. Materialists

4. Splitsville

5. Anniversary

I would also like to give a special mention to the four-part miniseries Adolescence, which still haunts me today, months after I watched it.

Was there a book you could not put down or a movie you watched over and over last year? Share your recommendations in the comments.

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Things I Recommend This Week

• Did Notre Dame accidentally get cc’ed on some ACC shade? | FOIAball

• The Greatest Restaurant Review of All Time | Shloop (YouTube)

• How the ‘Harvard of Trading’ Ruined Thousands of Young People’s Lives | Businessweek

• This couple wants you to know that conjugal visits are only legal in 4 states | Scalawag

• Stuck at sea for years, a sailor’s plight highlights a surge in shipowner abandonment | The Associated Press

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While this post came later than usual, I still enjoy the chance to reflect back on the year that was and clear my mind ahead of the year that will be. Thank you as always for reading.