I missed 2025’s Third Quarter Year Check-in because I got busy. I started but did not complete 2025’s End-of-Year Check-in because I got sick. Still, I want to at least summarize where I’m at if for no one else than for myself.
Continuing the path
I opted to continue 2025’s Annual One-Pager rather than create a new one because I don’t see it changing much. For the past few years I’ve felt that I’ve generally been heading in the right direction so it’s been a case of minor course correction. For the record, this isn’t the first time I’ve continued a previous year’s One-Pager either though it is rare.
From CORE to “Embrace” and “Release”
As has been tradition, 2025’s Annual Theme of CORE did not take shape until towards the end of the year. The idea behind CORE is to direct my focus to whatever the central essence is of the subject matter that had my attention. It certainly was helpful to view things in this way yet I felt it never shifted things in a way that made me stop in wonder. Not until towards the end of 2025 anyway.
As cliché as it sounds, I realised the CORE of everything that vies for my time and attention is Me. All the more reason to take care of myself and my well-being. It’s also a reminder to grow and develop myself because by being the CORE of everything I do makes everything I touch unique in its own way. And this applies to everyone else as well in that everything they are involved in is unique because they are the CORE of it all.
I’ve been working on a project that I see as a nexus point of different areas in my life. It has been very exciting and I realise CORE explains my feelings around it.
As for 2026’s theme, I chose “Embrace” and “Release”. At first glance they are diametrical opposites yet I bring them together in a complimentary fashion: “Embrace to Release” and ”Release to Embrace”. It should actually read “Embrace to Release to Embrace to…” and vice versa to present a never-ending cycle continuous action. I envision it as pulsing or the breathing of Life where 1 cannot start before the other ends and 1 cannot end without the other starting. And where exactly does 1 end and the other start is left up to those who have more time to ponder than I do.
In a strange twist of events, I may have also accidentally birthed a secondary theme this year one that is decidedly less meta-view and more practical: “Deliberate, Deliberate”. The first has to do with thought & discussion, as in to deliberate (or think) over concerns. The second has to do with conscious, aware action i.e. to be deliberate in what I do. Basically “Think before you Act, then Act Thoughtfully”. I’d later learn the proper term for these words: Homographs.
2025 Progress
2025 was the year I made real progress on my journey towards healing my upper traps and plantar. I’ve been able to do upper body exercises without pain and have even been able to re-incorporate exercises I’d stopped because they would trigger spasms. While the muscles can still get tight and feel uncomfortable they are rarely painful or cause migraines. Similarly, I have been able to greatly improve my plantar issues with walking lunges. Like my upper traps, my feet can feel tight and uncomfortable on occasion but so far have not reverted to the pain I used to feel.
My Mental-Emotional Well-Being felt significantly better in 2025. It’s a good sign I’m doing something right. I’ve been using a lot of techniques from Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) but I also want to continue using techniques from other modalities like CBT.
Here comes a New Challenger!
2025 was the year I started playing Street Fighter 6 (SF6). At the risk of spewing pure hyperbole playing SF6 has done more for me than almost anything I’ve done in recent memory.
I’ve made a conscious effort to play more video games over the past few years as a way to keep my workaholic tendencies in check. Choosing to play SF6 was also a way to support my own well-being through doing something enjoyable that also has a challenge factor.
In fact, “enjoy playing the game” became my mantra. When things got frustrating, I simply stopped and did something else. For me, “enjoying the game” also means getting better at it (at my own pace) which I did through watching YouTube videos and joining a short training camp. Ultimately I managed to reach Master Rank with C. Viper, a character very unlike what I normally play and notorious for being so technical that players shy away from using her.
But the best part of playing SF6 is interacting with the local community often called the FGC (Fighting Game Community). I’ve met up and played sets with many of the local SF6 players and have been having a blast.
Strangely, playing SF6 may have also helped my upper traps issues because on several occasions my traps felt looser and less painful after playing some online matches. Go figure…
Documenting my life
This idea of documenting my life came to me towards the end of 2025 and I can’t really explain why. So this year I’m experimenting with doing just that using Diararium.
It isn’t a narcissistic outlet, at least I don’t think it can be construed as such given what I’ve already documented. It’s part replacement of incumbent social media (which I’ve stepped away from) and part keeping track of things in the event I need to refer back to them. It’s definitely not for journaling as I see this more for quick snippets than long-form writing, and I have a separate method for tracking events worth celebrating. Truth be told, I’m having a hard time coming up with things to enter regularly. Oh well, that’s why this is an experiment.
Riichi Mahjong (aka Japanese Mahjong)
I’ve gotten hooked on playing Riichi Mahjong (sometimes called Japanese Mahjong) thanks to the Yakuza series of video games. I downloaded a simple app where I can challenge the CPU and I’ve been playing it more than I care to admit. But it’s fun and also has that challenge factor so I consider it part of building my well-being. I will need to be careful to not get addicted though 😅
Re-scheduling check-ins
As irregular as they have been I will still do periodic check-ins throughout the year but have decided to shift their schedules earlier by 1 month. It’s why this check-in was written around the end of February instead of the end of March. I did this because December straddles both years and I’ve been treating it both as a time to reset and to bound out of the gate. Like documenting my life, let’s see how this goes.