Don't Call it a Coincidence: The Anatomy of a Transformative Year 2025
So, how was your 2025?
To give you the post-game analysis on mine, I have to start with a recent book club pick: a novella by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt called The Pledge (Das Versprechen). On the surface, it’s a thriller… or at least, the author’s cynical side-eye at the genre.
Here’s the spark-notes version: in literature, as in life, we are hopelessly obsessed with the full circle. We want the protagonist to cross the finish line: to meet their person, trek across the globe for that missing piece, or finally find their calling.
In a thriller, we demand the killer be caught, tried, and tossed in a cell. We get emotionally invested; we root for the detective’s genius. This is why books and movies ending on cliffhangers usually get dragged through the mud on Goodreads or IMDb. (Okay, okay. Don’t come for me here. There’s Inception. Or No Country for Old Men. Exceptions that prove the rule. That’s why I said “usually”.)
The Pledge spits in the eye of the "brilliant detective" trope. It asks: what if the case is solved one day not by deduction or heroism, but by pure, dumb accident? Does that still make for a "good" story? That made me wonder about something beyond the noir: do coincidences account for most that happens to us?
With that slightly cryptic preamble, which I promise will land the plane in a moment, I’m ready to talk about my 2025. Here are my three biggest lessons.
Lesson 1: The “Sudden” vs. The Slow Burn
2025 was a year of tectonic shifts. Remember how at the end of 2024, I said that nothing major had changed? Well, as it turns out, 2024 was just the "quiet before the storm" before the earthquake that was 2025. To an untrained eye, these changes seemed to drop out of the sky.
"It just so happened," the onlookers would say.
I’ve never been a fan of that explanation. It implies we’re all just leaves blowing in the wind with zero agency. While I’m not delusional enough to think we’re in total control of the universe, I do believe in the "slow burn." Most "sudden" events are actually just the result of pressure building quietly beneath the surface until the crust finally gives way.
We love a good label, don't we? People are remarkably quick to point at a 20-year “overnight success.” They marvel at someone "stumbling into financial abundance" as if it happened with a literal snap of the fingers, ignoring the years of calloused hands that made the snap possible. They call a life-changing transformation a "whim," when in reality, that seed was planted a decade ago and finally found water. Even a "sudden breakup" usually has a trail of breadcrumbs leading back months, if not years. It’s just that most people prefer to look at the horizon rather than the cracks under their feet.
Lesson 2: Ego is the Enemy
This year I delved into the magnificent world of psychology. Cheesy as it sounds, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Naturally, I started with Freud. What I’ve learned is that, just like the detective in The Pledge, your ego will get quite furious when things don't go according to plan. This happens with negative changes, but paradoxically, with positive ones too.
The ego demands to know: "I like that this happened, but why did it not happen on my terms?" or "I hate that this happened; why am I not in charge of the outcome?"
The answer is simple: because you aren't. You can certainly contribute to the buildup—stacking the deck for better or worse—but the resolution or its timing is rarely in your hands. 2025 taught me to celebrate the wins, dust myself off when I need it, and keep moving.
Lesson 3: The Revolving Door
A few people exited my life this year. Some spent a long time pretending to be something they weren't, so I finally let them go. Others simply grew in a different direction. And many new ones came in. It’s the natural ecology of a life in flux. You have agency here, too: to make room for the new, you have to stop hoarding the old that no longer serves you.
Beyond just "letting go," I realized that relationships aren't always a failure just because they don't reach a finish line. We often treat a friendship that ends as a wasted investment, but that’s just the ego talking again, demanding a full circle. Some people are meant to be a guest star for a single season rather than a series regular. Accepting that their exit was a completed character arc made the transitions of 2025 feel less like a loss, and more like a necessary edit.
A New Kind of Detective
In the end, The Pledge serves as a warning against the madness of expecting reality to follow the logic of a well-structured novel.
Take my 2025: it didn't give me the "brilliant detective" moment. I didn't solve my life with a single stroke of genius or a montage of hard work. Instead, an equal amount of wonderful and terrifying events happened as a result of my efforts, actions, and decisions. There were a few coincidences too, but I’m not giving them the credit.
I’m walking into 2026 knowing that if life is going to be a thriller, I might as well enjoy the plot twists I didn't see coming, right alongside the ones I spent years meticulously plotting.
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