WHILE GOING TO 2025

What a year it has been, right, my dear reader? How did it flow by like water so quickly? What happened to you in this past year? 2024, even though it wasn't going all that great, changed its course with a trip. I went to the beautiful Doha, Qatar. In my head, there’s a song from Aladdin's Magic Lamp: "A Whole New World." A whole new world. The lights, the skyscrapers, but also the structures that preserved their authenticity—it was unlike anywhere I had ever been.

I lived abroad for many years, but after a certain amount of time in each place, I began to feel disconnected from a very human part of me: the sense of discovery. How basic, how profound this feeling is. It reaches all the way back to that part of us as children who discover life from scratch. Everything is new for a child. The first time touching the snow falling outside, tasting a lemon for the first time, experiencing the surprise of a cat stretching and swatting its paw... These are all big discoveries and small victories for them. In other words, the experience of discovery is a source of dopamine for a child.

Sadly, by the time we reach adulthood, we’ve already ruthlessly consumed most of the things around us to discover. Some of us manage to carry the magic of that feeling into adulthood. Seeing new places, meeting new people, picking up a new hobby, trying new foods, listening to new songs... The immense joy of the new opening up a discovery space for you, and the warm dopamine released from there… The small victories we give ourselves when we conquer something.

As we grow a little more, we experience things that make us feel a little more expanded, a little closer to ourselves. These experiences motivate us, connect us to life, and bring us joy. Through discovery, we find, understand, and make sense of the world… And even ourselves.

The journeys we make within ourselves and what we discover about ourselves touch the same place inside us. It leads us to happiness.

In this new year, I wish for you to be full of discoveries, both inside and out. As we head toward 2025, how about we prepare ourselves, both materially and spiritually, to discover ourselves in this new year? Let’s revive, renew, and discover. The world and ourselves...

With LOVE,