And 2025 is over, not with a bang, but with a fizzle.
I had a great year overall. 2025 was my last full year of my twenties. I celebrated three and a half years of being a lawyer and three and a half years of living in my apartment. Things are going well with work; most of the time, I feel genuinely grateful to have the job that I do. 2025 was the year I became a long-distance runner: I ran my first 10k race in the spring and my first half-marathon in the autumn. I also reignited my creativity; completing Julia Cameron’s creative recovery program The Artist’s Way, learning how to paint with watercolours and repairing my old DSLR camera. I took two creative writing classes through the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, and started learning how to cook and bake.
Unfortunately, the last few weeks of 2025 were not reflective of how positively the rest of the year went, and were mostly marked by anxiety and stress. I underwent a major life change (I won’t talk about it now, because I’m still working through it and it deserves a dedicated blog post of its own) and spent two weeks sick with the flu. I spent the latter part of December mostly in bed, taking a variety of medications, binge-watching House, M.D. and surviving on Oreos and Fudgesicles. If I learned anything from the experience, it was the importance of getting the flu shot.
Something that you probably won’t be surprised to find out about me and my Type A personality is that I’m a faithful new year’s resolution maker. I agree with a lot of the usual objections related to making resolutions (there isn’t anything inherently special about January 1st, you can make changes to your life anytime) but I also think that there’s something inspiring about the start of a new year. Setting resolutions is a great way to give yourself direction.
In order to give myself the best chance of making my resolutions stick, I always make sure that my goals are achievable and measurable. I don’t like setting goals that are too lofty or too vague- I prefer to set easily-trackable goals like “work out four days a week” as opposed to goals I can’t really evaluate like “work out more”. I also make sure to check in with myself every month to evaluate my progress and whether I’ve been sticking to my resolutions.
My 2025 resolutions were as follows:
- Go to the Optometrist and get a new Pair of good-quality Glasses. Done! When I came up with the resolution, it had been years since I’d gone to the optometrist and my prescription was so outdated that the only places I could buy glasses from were sketchy online websites with suspiciously cheap products.
- Travel somewhere. Done! While I didn’t do any big trips, I travelled to a few places in Southern Ontario including Tobermory, the Kawartha lakes, and Manitoulin Island.
- Pay off my Student Loans and Save a Certain Amount of Money. Partially done. While I was able to pay off my student loans in 2025, I didn’t save as much money as I wanted to. Money is something I definitely need to keep working on my relationship with in 2026.
- Read Twenty books. Done! I finished my 20th book of 2025 the evening of December 31. My top genres of the year were contemporary fiction and non-fiction memoir. My favourite new-to-me book in 2025 was The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
- Take One Course with the U of T School of Continuing Studies– Done- I did two!
- Work out and Eat Well– Done! I evaluated this goal throughout the year by tracking things like daily step counts and sticking to my running training plans.
For 2026, my resolutions are very similar:
- Take Two Courses with the U of T School of Continuing Studies
- Save a Certain Amount of Money
- Continue Working Out and Eating Well– I am signed up for a half-marathon in the spring and anticipate training for another one (or maybe a full marathon?) in the fall.
- Publish Two Blog Posts a Month– I’m paying for this domain, I might as well use it.
- Keep up with my Philosophy Personal Curriculum– As I mentioned in my previous post, I am trying to learn philosophy and have been working on designing a personal curriculum for myself. So far, I’ve been working through some introductory texts and lectures.
- Read Fifteen books (including two Short Story collections)– I reduced my goal from twenty to fifteen books this year to account for the longer, more dense philosophy texts I’m hoping to get through. One of the books I read in December was The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, and even though it was less than 130 pages it took me almost a month to get through and I still don’t feel like I totally understand it.
In any event, I’m hoping that the start of 2026 goes better than the end of 2025 for me. I daresay things are starting to look up already.
I hope you’ve all had a good start to the new year as well, and that you accomplish any resolutions and goals you set your mind to.
With love,
Laura Kate
Laura Katherine 