This was my yearly theme of 2025 already, but I did not follow through with it. I want to give this another shot this year, because I think it is an important theme. I'm writing about it in public to hold myself accountable, hopefully.
Naturally this theme, like all themes, is adaptable and can be bent. It mainly acts as a guide. I'll remain curious throughout the year and adapt my goals depending on where the year will take me.
However, as a guiding principle, I'll state here that connection needs to happen with other people and that it is preferable for it to happen in person.
Connecting to people I don't know is one of the hardest things in life for me. It also is the most rewarding, in many senses. Life is not meant to be experienced alone. We come to this world alone and we leave it alone, but everything in between thrives when it is shared with others. I would argue that most things in life only get meaning when they are shared. Not embracing human connection is rejecting life.
I never had many friends. I'm the type of person that has a handful of very good friends and I enjoy that. However, I noticed that the small number of friends I do have is shrinking. The potential reasons for this are plenty: I moved to another country, interests change when you progress trough life, it's generally harder to maintain friendships once you also have a family and a full-time job. But it mostly comes down to me being bad at keeping in touch.
None of these reasons matter. What matters is that I'd like to have a bigger social circle again and that I'd like to strengthen the ties with my friends.
I also never had many acquaintances, but having a large circle of connections on a more casual level is often the cheat code to life. Everything we call life consists of relationships, in the end. While there might be rules and process on the surface, they all are overridden by relationships. The interesting job one might want to have? Of curse there is an application process and rule by which people are hired. But if you know the person who owns the company, the process does not exist for you. It is overruled by the relationship. This is true for all areas in life.
The third area of connection I want to focus on is my immediate family. I'm happily married, but too often take it for granted. It is easy to see marriage as the end state of a relationship, while in reality it still requires the same amount of care. Maybe even more, once you have kids and your main mode of operating is just handling the everyday.
The same goes for the relationship with my children: It is easy to take it for granted, since the relationship is formed the moment they're born and they don't have any choice for the first years other than making this relationship work somehow. They're dependent on it. I want to make sure that we're building a lifelong relationship that is not based on dependance or social norms but genuine connection.
So this leaves me with two main ideas for this year:
- Grow and nurture the existing connections with my friends and family
- Create new connections with people by being genuinely curious
This might change throughout the year. I may realize that doing both at once is just too much and that is okay. But both are very important to me, so I will set out to do both.
I did not write out any measurable goals or recurring habits just yet on purpose. Maybe I will write an update once I have them figured out or maybe I'll just keep them for myself for now. I will, however, make a commitment to write at least one update towards the end of 2026. Just to make sure I cannot hide from myself if I don't follow through.
