2024 Reflections: What I am taking with me into 2025

2024 has been a whirlwind — a year of stretching, reckoning, and growth. This year stretched me, shook me, and shaped me in ways I hadn’t expected — and perhaps needed.

I don’t often do this, but this year feels deserving of a public reflection, both as a way to hold myself accountable and as an offering to others navigating similar waters. These lessons aren’t new; they’ve been whispered (and sometimes shouted) by wise voices for years. But this year, I didn’t just hear them — I felt them in my bones.

Here are some of the lessons from 2024 I’m carrying forward into 2025 — not as tidy truths, but as questions and invitations for the year ahead:

1. What if we stopped resigning to “what is” and leaned into “what if”?

Things as they are feel familiar. And familiar is comfortable. It’s so easy to settle into that comfort, even when we know it’s broken. We normalise the brokenness, rushing to “find our way” through it instead of challenging it — especially when part of that brokenness works in our favour. This year, I have been noticing how we’ve been trained to resign ourselves to the helpless stance of “it is what it is,” often even glorifying that resignation as adaptation and resilience.

But what if, in 2025, we leaned into the possibility that a different world is possible, instead of dismissing it as idealistic or naive? What if we embraced change instead — messy, unsettling change — trusting that a more just, humane, and compassionate world is worth the risk, believing that we’ll be okay even when things shift?

2. Courage grows when we remember we’re interconnected.

In a hyper-individualistic culture, it’s easy to get caught in the game of “every person for themselves.” But the truth is, whether we accept it or not, we are interconnected. None of us are free until all of us are free. A better world is one where systems work for everyone, not just a select few.

To be clear, I don’t mean leaning into interconnectedness as sacrificing boundaries; but about balancing self-love with collective care. What if, in 2025, we drew boundaries like membranes instead of walls that— as Prentiss Hempill says — allow us to love both ourselves and others? What if we leaned into discomfort, recognising that collective care sometimes requires it?

3. People are gloriously, frustratingly complex.

This year, I was disappointed by people I deeply respected. It has been tempting to write them off, to reduce them to their worst actions. But I also saw people rise — commit to justice, grow in their imperfections, and inspire hope, standing up for what was right, even if the path to there (and they themselves) was often messy.

It’s easy to reduce others to their worst moments or pedestalise their best. But hey, aren’t we are all messy evolving ecosystems of meanings with blurry edges, full of contradictions? Especially as we try to hold our values in a world that offers every opportunity and incentive (and ready-made justifications) to violate those values.

To be clear, I am not saying we excuse harmful behaviour — just because something is explainable doesn’t make it excusable. But, how do we hold space for accountability and the possibility of transformation? Growth is painful, and change is hard. What if, in 2025, we built spaces where compassionate accountability made it easier for people to rise to higher standards — not as a way to ease their discomfort, but to facilitate transformation?

4. Can we please, please talk about power?

A mentor once told me: “If something doesn’t make sense, add power to the equation.” Power shapes identity, worth, belonging — and it’s often the missing variable in understanding why people or systems act as they do. And also why it is uncomfortable to talk about, especially for those of us benefiting from it.

This year, I have been in so many conversations where unhealthy power and power imbalance was clearly causing so much harm. But people in the room (usually the ones with power) were so afraid of the word, so quick to dismiss it as a “woke” idea or “postmodern navel gazing”, because it forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves.

But we cannot talk of a better world without talking about power. So what if we stopped avoiding that conversation in 2025? What if we examined power — not just in systems, but in ourselves: how we feel it, how we wield it, how it shapes our relationships and communities — and worked to build healthier, more equitable power for all?

5. Discomfort is worth it.

Change is messy, uncomfortable, and good lord, so exhausting. It has been so easy to distract myself from it, to “out-logic” the voice that inspired me to sit with that discomfort, especially as I was required to be efficient more than I wanted to be effective. Discomfort felt like obstacle, and I sometimes found myself giving in to the entitlement of easing my discomfort even at the cost of the work ahead of me.

But what if, in 2025, we saw the discomfort as a sign of growth, not something to avoid? We endure discomfort in our careers, relationships, even our hobbies — because we care. What if we cared enough about the future to face the discomfort of creating it? What if we stopped pretending apathy was resilience and instead leaned into a fierce, stubborn hope?

As I step into 2025, I’m holding these questions close:
What if we believed a better world was possible, from a place of curiosity and hope?
What if we cared enough to lean into the discomfort of making it happen?
What if we stopped waiting for permission to imagine, resigning to a helpless stance — and started building with agency?

Here’s to the messy, beautiful, transformative work ahead. 💫