Inexorably, inevitably, 2025 has arrived. Of course, another rotation of our planet around our sun is an arbitrary milestone, but there’s a certain usefulness in marking it. Whatever you’ve done (or haven’t), whatever you’ve been through (or avoided), it’s brought you here to this point and prepared you (or not) for whatever comes next. And, oh boy, is there a lot that will come next.

Making predictions about where we’re going is dangerous business. The Pandora’s box of human advancement continues to open. We’re simultaneously on the edge of everything falling apart and everything being better than it’s ever been. It’s scary, and tempting to pine for a nostalgic past that maybe never really existed, or at least not in the way it’s remembered. Every age has had its existential challenges, after all. What makes our challenges so scary right now is that they’re unresolved. We don’t yet know how it’ll all turn out.

Despite that, I think that this is the best time in human history to be alive. I’m not being naïve (I hope). Our challenges are real. Our geopolitical world is more volatile than it’s been in decades, with not much to suggest it’ll get better soon. Our environment remains in peril, and it doesn’t feel like we’re doing enough. And, artificial intelligence will inevitably disrupt livelihoods even as it brings us amazing new tools. The list goes on. But, those are givens. We can’t change them. We can only control how we respond to them and what we do next.

In that vein, I find myself reflecting a lot on three books I read in 2024: Areté, Clear Thinking and Extreme Ownership. All three underscore a crucial truth that Epictetus first taught two thousand years ago: the only thing you can control is yourself. Everything else — weather, traffic, politics, the current state of the environment, the angry person yelling on the corner, the frustration of coworkers — is input. It’s up to us to decide how to react to that input (or not). To decide what to do next, what decision to make, and what action to take.

This is the mindset I want to continue to improve through 2025. And, if I could make a wish for 2025, it would be that we can all find ways to be more intentional in how we respond to, and shape the world we find ourselves in.

Happy New Year! Let’s make it a good one.