Creating this newsletter was one of my goals for last year, though I faltered along the way. In 2026, I want to write here more consistently. To ease myself back in, I’ve put together a short list of things that became clear in 2025.

2025 was foundational and instructive. It was the year I intentionally began to build mental models— the kind that forced you to live inside truths you’ve often heard but rarely practiced because familiarity made them easy to dismiss. For that reason, they felt worth sharing because sometimes the usefulness of old ideas comes from writing them down.

You prolong your own misery when you treat negative thoughts as a personal defect rather than common noise to be ignored.

Think of your mind like a radio. There’s a station for all sorts of thoughts: memories, goals, fear, bitterness, and so on. You cannot delete them because the programming began many years ago, so they play without permission. But you can learn to tune the stations out.
My 2025 had major wins. However, strangely, there were seasons I preferred the days when nothing was happening, because I consciously tuned in to Gratitude FM. I then realized that negative thoughts aren’t a product of a particular season; as such, you must learn to regulate them.
Thus, if the mind is like a radio picking up signals from a lifetime of experiences and encounters, it is naive to think peace is a state free of noise rather than a mind skilled at turning the volume down. Paul describes it as: “setting our affection.” Col 3:1. Thanksgiving is the fastest way to lower the volume because when God is magnified, everything else shrinks to its proper size.

The price of knowing someone well is to discover the ways they’re unwell.

Not unwell in a cynical sense, but in the personal habits, attitude, and reaction that would seem unhinged if fully exposed. It is to accept in real terms that “no one is perfect.” Not just to know in the abstract, but to accept it and let that knowledge shape how you deal with yourself and others.

Knowing there is a mess behind every pristine personality keeps our expectations of others grounded. Many are mad, few are roaming. Thus, wealth, status, fame, lexicons, and beauty do not inoculate anyone against instability. Certainly don’t assume that being well-educated or having theological depth has any bearing on one’s emotional intelligence.

This realization also helps us to accept certain truths about ourselves, sparing us the additional shame. Growing up, there is a desire to stand out, to escape the sense of being ordinary. But as we explore adulthood, you come to terms with your ordinariness— your habits, flaws, struggles, and limitations are very much like everyone else’s. “Let he who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.”

This is comforting. You are not uniquely defective. There is a shared human experience in ordinary life. Accepting this cools the fire of anguish and restores perspective.

True intimacy leaves no room for illusion. True knowledge of someone goes beyond surface-level friendship or shared fun to see their quirks, flaws, insecurities, and less polished sides. To know someone well is to brush against the unsightly. A willingness to hold both what is irritating and what is lovable. It is brushing with the unsightly. Intimacy requires vulnerability from both sides.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you” Anne Lamott

What feels like restlessness is often an unmet need asking to be named. Afraid to sit with our thoughts, we reach out to our phones at every pause. Dumb scrolling is less about curiosity and more about avoidance.

2025 came with the realization that the things that actually move your life a little forward are usually not fun while doing them. The workout is boring. The cold emails are boring. Writing can be boring. The devotion can be boring. Staying alone with my thoughts can be boring.

Novelty feels like progress, but novelty is just stimulation. Growth hides in repetition. When you unplug from the attention economy, boredom shows up first. Then we have the power to zero in on what truly matters. Consistency comes later. Then progress. The boring days stack, and eventually, they become something

Chaos can be a companion on the right road.

Some paths roar before they open. Resistance can be confirmation, not correction. Ask Joseph; betrayed before the palace. Ask David; anointed but saw shege before the throne. Ask Jesus, crucified before the crown. Ask the disciples, scattered before the Church.

On the other side of the resistance is victory, purpose, and God, knowing that all things work together for our good. That with God, every plot has a purpose. With God, no plot is wasted, every trial carries a purpose

God’s way is not to be argued with, only yielded to

I genuinely wonder how people live without God, especially those who know of Him and still refuse Him. How do you trust your guts to navigate life? My gut gives gutters. (lol)

God is the torch lighting the way through the wilderness of existence. Alignment begins where debate ends.
I don’t know what it’s like for others, but since talking to God daily, not just when I’m at my wits’ end, feels like entering a dialogue greater than me. On the pages emerges a version of me that I did not know existed. In His light, I see light. Giving me a different lens through which I see myself and the world. Opening up thoughts that linger in my mind unchallenged, forcing me to see them really for what they are.

Happy New Year!
Cheers to 2026!