2025: Year in review

How many years can fit inside one year, again?

See my review of 2024 here.

A lot happened this year!

I feel like I say this every year, and I think that’s because for the past few years I’ve been changing up a lot in my life; pursuing, shaping, adjusting, trying to be intentional. And 2025 was no different.

This year felt like a 2-in-1 for me, with one chapter ending and another one beginning. I wrapped up my two-year-long sabbatical because I got into grad school, and I started school in August. All in all, I’m feeling really great – I’m grateful for where I’ve been, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the new path I’m on.

Some reflections

Early field notes

Being fully immersed in grad school now, I am learning just how different the field of therapy is what I thought and what I was doing before, and what it is going to require of me. They say that you, the clinician, are the tool through which the therapy is conducted, thus it is important to understand yourself. Well, this goes waaay deeper than I initially thought, which I guess is why there’s so much training.

I also kind of got thrown into the deep end but with some support structures, which is honestly how I prefer to learn. It’s been a lot, but it really feels like there’s no place I’d rather be right now. It’s crazy how fun and engaging school and training can be when you’re really into the subject.

Introspection and deep, incisive honestly are important. So are compassion and humility.

Also, for some reason I have this recurring temptation to want to believe that all of my classmates, and other therapists in general, are similar to me in how we think and what we believe. But in fact every therapist is different! I suspect that there are more or less therapists of every personality type out there (except maybe enneagram type 7s), just with some more common shared tendencies to want to understand other people’s perspectives. But there’s still so much variety in what people believe, the angles they like to approach from, how sociable they are, etc.

(Additionally this means if you’re still looking for the right therapist-client fit, don’t give up. There are therapists out there that you’ll work well with.)

No place I’d rather be

Almost immediately upon starting my clinical training and getting acculturated to the field, I would have moments where I felt like life was surreal. Because a lot of what I’d hear, about how to think as a therapist, aligned so well with how I already liked to think or things I wanted to do more of.

“Hell yeah, this is so sick,” is something I found myself saying a lot.

And it’s not just the vibes being aligned. It’s the day-to-day and general direction feeling good too. During my sabbatical, I kept returning to one of my values: industry (“to work hard and well at my life tasks”). And I wanted the next thing I did to be something that I wanted to work hard at. Something that I could do for 8 hours per day that didn’t want to make me bash my head into a wall. The “8 hours” part is really important to me, because it represents having a Main Thing that I’m pursuing and trying to get good at. That’s what I want for myself.

I’d considered art, but ultimately it wasn’t something I could do for hours a day. I’d considered stock trading, but that felt hollow, like I wasn’t contributing anything to other people. I’d considered life coaching, but I found I really did not like the marketing side of starting up a life coaching business.

Then at some point during my sabbatical I realized I was spending a lot of my time on youtube watching Dr. K videos, learning about psychology, and learning about my own mind and how to best live with it. Fast forward to today, and it turns out that I’m really enjoying spending 8 hours a day training to be come a therapist: doing sessions, getting supervision, learning theory, reading the readings, reflecting, and even writing the papers.

In my case, grad school turned out to be exactly what I needed: the structure enables me to actually focus my attetion on one domain for 8 hours per day, I get instruction from actual practicing clinicians, I have peers that are as interested in the field as I am, and I get the opportunity to train with clients right away. As for the downsides? To use the words of Mark Manson, I could eat this specific flavour of sh*t sandwich all day.

While I’m pretty exhausted by the end of most days, there really is no place I’d rather be.

I’ve made it

Full post here.

Doing things

Drawing

I finished 29 portrait studies (#467-495), over 92/365 days and 64.5 hours.

And I f*cking cooked!! Here are some of my favourites:

• #482, #484, #485

• #469, #470, #488, #495 - all of Lee Chaeyoung, from kpop group fromis_9

I was drawing at a decent clip in the first 8 months of the year, but basically completely paused once I started school. Being in school makes it very hard to draw, mostly due to me allocating most of my focus and mental energy to school and clinical work.

I’d like to draw more in 2026 if possible, but I’m trying to not force it.

Some other observations:

• Resistance and the inner critic get stronger the more time I spend away from drawing

• It’s so important to return to doing what feels good, whatever that may be for you at that particular time

• Once the school term ended in Dec, I started drawing again while listening to music, and that was sublime

Writing

Including this review, I published 14 blog posts this year.

I wrapped up my Sabbatical Notes series.

I started posting recipes that I really like. Maybe this will eventually become my own little assorted collection / cookbook.

And I wrote a bunch of educational-ish posts that I’m proud of:

1. Early Notes on Meditation

2. Mechanics of Indecision

3. What is Motivation?

4. My tips for using AI for therapy

Again, with school now in full swing, I’m not sure what kind of posts I’ll be putting out (or have the time to put out). Regardless, I still want to be publishing at some rate.

State of the watch collection

1. Seiko SARB033 (black)

2. Shinola Circadian Monster (white)

3. Tissot PRX 40mm (blue)

4. Cartier Tank Must

5. Cartier Santos 100

6. Omega Seamaster Diver 300M (blue) - vintage ref. 2531.80

Notable books I read

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

• The Buddha and the Borderline by Kiera Van Gelder

Notable things I watched

Concerts

• thủy

• Gawr Gura’s graduation

• HITC, feat. 2NE1, G-Dragon

• Ado (!!)

• hololive English 3rd Concert -All for One-

• LE SSERAFIM

• Dua Lipa

• Maroon 5

Movies & Shows

• Princess Mononoke (1997) - IMAX re-release

• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) - rewatch

• How to Train Your Dragon (2010) - rewatch

• Black Bag (2025)

• Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

• Sinners (2025) - IMAX re-release

• Physical: Asia (2025)

For my extended month-by-month breakdown, see it on my blog.