JAN 01, 2026

2026 yearly theme: year of commitment

2026 is year of commitment.

it’s a bit of a loaded theme, and it’s not one i arrived at easily. in fact, i’ve thought since the end of 2024 that 2026 was going to be year of rest, and in the final months of 2025, i thought that this year should surely be year of health. i only changed my mind in the last couple of days. there is some part of me that is concerned about this abrupt change—in an abstract sense, it seems…well, not wrong, but capricious. but the more i thought about it, the more i didn’t want my theme to be reactive to the events of 2024, or even the events of the last couple of months, and that’s how we ended up with this theme.

there are two main parts of the theme this year.

first, i will commit to myself and my future. a deep sense of ennui started pervading my life in the latter half of 2025, which, if i had to choose, i would attribute to uncertainty in my personal and professional life.^[1] some part of my brain was trying to convince me that i had no goals, that there was no future that i particularly cared about—and also, sweetly, that this was why it was all going to be okay. effectively, the product manager for my life had quit the job and left the team with no vision or direction. so this year, i want to clarify the direction i want to take my life. i want to trust that i am capable of following that direction and work towards it, instead of anxiously wandering around. i also want to really respect the direction that resonates with me, without judging, analyzing, or thinking too hard about it. basically, i’m going to hire a new pm! (hopefully one that won’t quit this time)

second, i will do my best work. i’ve noticed that i’ve been avoiding things that are effortful, hard, or uncertain, all under the guise of efficiency. it is true that being efficient means getting more for less effort, but i’ve been exploring too much to reduce the effort i put in and not exploiting the products of my “optimizations.” so i end up putting in less effort because i’m trying to find ways to put in less effort, which means….i just put in less effort, and my work suffers. i want to stop dodging difficult work, and, more than that, i want integrate holding my work to a high standard into my identity. i want actually finish my projects, solve my problems, and take pride in my work. do one task at a time. fall off the climb because i actually fell, not because i assumed i couldn’t do it. really understand the problem and take the steps to solve it, or determine that there is nothing to be done. that kind of thing. in short, “stop being performative and start walking through walls.”

anyway, happy new year! i hope your 2026 is as good as i’m going to make mine :P