Essay: The First Day of 2025, Some Thoughts

Today is January 1st, 2025. A new year has begun, and I am a year older. There was no special celebration—just a cup of coffee, sitting at my desk, thinking about jotting down something random. I’m someone who lacks a sense of ritual and feel indifferent toward all holidays. To me, every day is the same—good or bad, it’s all the same. All meaning is assigned by people. 2025 is no different; just like every year before, there’s academic pressure, the joy of exploration, anxiety, and peace. Year after year passes like this, days flowing gently like water, occasionally rippling, but eventually returning to calm.

This year, I’m about to turn 25. Twenty-five is a subtle number for me. At 15, being 20 seemed to mean “adulthood”—maturity, independence, and all the answers to life’s questions. At 20, 25 represented my ideal self: someone who had found direction and was moving forward steadily. My sense of time at 25 is different from when I was 15 or 20. At 15, I had no concept of time, always feeling the future was far away and days were endless, never thinking about things from the perspective of time. At 20, I started to have some vague goals, but still felt time was inexhaustible, doing whatever I liked, however I wanted.

And so, muddling along, suddenly I’m 25. Now, I’ve reached the age I once looked forward to, only to find that many things aren’t as simple as I imagined. In fact, it’s not much different from when I was 20—no clear answers, perhaps even more confusion and uncertainty. Sometimes it makes me anxious, but sometimes it also feels liberating.

To be honest, I rarely look at my life from the perspective of “time.” In the past few years, I’ve mostly gone with the flow. Each day is divided into classes, experiments, writing, and entertainment, rarely stopping to think about who I am or where I want to go. Perhaps because of this, time has become blurry in my life. It’s no longer a countdown or a goal to chase, but a natural flow—like air, imperceptible yet everywhere.

Standing at the beginning of the new year, I think maybe I can try to view time from another angle. It’s not a straight line, but a slowly expanding circle. As time passes, our experiences, knowledge, and perspectives extend the boundary of this circle. As a child, the world seemed simple because the circle was small and the boundaries were close. Now, having seen more scenery and met more people, I realize the world’s complexity and vastness. Everyone’s boundary is different, and each circle has a unique shape. This helps me better understand diversity and makes me more willing to respect and accept it.

This year, I don’t want to make grand plans. Past experience tells me that plans are easily disrupted by life’s randomness, making it harder to focus on the present. So, for me, 2025 is more about maintaining an awareness: to see. See myself, see others, see the many possibilities of this world. Maybe I’ll still feel lost this year, but as long as I gain new insights and understand myself and what I want more clearly, that’s enough.

So, the new year is still meaningful. Through time, I see my own growth, the world’s complexity and diversity, and I become clearer about who I am, what I want, and where I want to go. Meaning is what we give it, not something it inherently possesses.

And that’s just fine.