Yearly Review - 2025
This year was a go with the flow kind of year. I didn’t make any massive decisions beyond the job change, and now looking back from December, I can’t remember most of it. Maybe age is catching up with my memory.
But it felt eventful at times and bleak at others. Isn’t that what life is? Not too bright, not too dark-just the right lighting and conditions to thrive. I took on some fun and challenging tasks at work and eyed a promotion, but that didn’t pan out. By year’s end, I found myself looking for new opportunities instead.
No international travels this year, and honestly, less fun than usual. Somehow I became what most men become: a working, office-going, lackluster, monotonous man (or man-child?). But I guess it’s at these points that we realize how cozy we’ve gotten and maybe need to break from that comfort. 2025 was the year of continued efforts at cooking, driving, and somewhat going to the gym.
I tried cooking a lot more new things and mostly succeeded. I even tried baking cakes with an air fryer, which turned out pretty nice. After months of deliberation, I got a pressure cooker and made biryani with it. I also bought a whole stainless-steel cookware set and felt momentarily on par with YouTube chefs.
Driving was genuinely fun. I did an almost-complete Kerala road trip-one to the south end, one to the north end. New roads, different types of drivers, and some really good views.
The gym? Inconsistent. I went for four months before falling off. Maybe 2026 will be different.
On the tech side, I actively tried self-hosting a few things like Ente Photos and others. That was rewarding. I even gave a talk about it at our local FOSS community meetup. That talk was better than the Nix one I did a year ago.
We also went on a few trips, most of them post-midnight-mostly food runs and driving long distances to get tea and talk. I went to Munnar twice this year. One trip was after midnight and completely spontaneous. We didn’t get tea on that one, but we traveled about 100 kilometers through fog and hills, just chasing the road.
In all honesty, life was mundane in 2025. I feel like I’ve become stagnant across the whole spectrum of things.
Yet somehow I’m still hopeful that life can be fun. It’s funny to think that at 25, I’ve probably got another 25 (maybe 35 if science advances enough) years to look forward to and enjoy(?). I’m kind of happy that 2025 wasn’t overly eventful-it had its goods and bads. It did teach me that I’m not good with relationships, nor with dealing with or keeping up with them.
A few of my friends got married this year, and I’m happy I was there to witness those moments.
The great thing that happened in 2025 is Bijoy’s Burger Joint, which has become our de facto hangout place. It’s been an honor to see them grow from making burgers in apartment 3B to becoming a heavily rated, crowd-pleasing joint.
I resigned from KnowBe4 in mid-November and closed shop with them by December. It was a great journey, and I’ll cherish the memories I made there. I’ll miss going to the office every week and hanging out with the folks there. But yeah, part of the journey is the end. I started a new job at Ultrahuman as a DevOps Engineer by the tail end of 2025, so yay!
Odometer reading of my car by end of 2025: 32.7k kilometers.
That’s pretty much it for me. 2025 was okay at best and fun nevertheless. I guess as I grow, it’s going to be more or less like this. I hope 2026 becomes a tad better. I hope to see my circle become great and do great things. I hope I grow out of being an ass and into a better human (one step at a time?) and a healthier human.