Today’s the last day of 2025 and I am reviving my blog!
It’s been over a year since I posted, yet I am no stranger to turning the faucet on and off, so to speak. Being flexible has been a beautiful and consistent feature of this blog. Even with two full years of 365 days of posting (the 2nd year I was even flexible about posting daily), the blog has stayed malleable, which fits me perfectly 😜
And so, as we close out another year, and in the spirit of personal growth which characterizes this blog, here are a few personal reflections on 2025*:
Personal Highlights of 2025 🥳
- Being good to myself. This is the year I learned to be flexible with myself, in everything I did, from my exercise life (see below) to how I launched my piano book (more to follow on this). All in all, I took my time, checked in with myself, and made adjustments to stay in balance. For example, I decided to write my wife a composition for her birthday this year instead of writing a song with lyrics. This might not seem like a big deal, but it took a lot of reflection before I accepted that the yearly birthday songwriting routine needed a shake up. This kind of flexibility paid off, in this and other areas.
- Appreciating piano teaching more than ever. 2025 was a culmination of my piano teaching career to date. After all, I released a book about piano teaching (more on this soon), started a new website about piano teaching, as well as handling the usual teaching schedule. It’s been 20 years since I started piano teaching, and I love it as much as ever.
- Putting feeling good first. This made being good to myself possible. I have written about this subject for years, but this year I am truly living it. For example, back in February I finally stopped kidding myself about my running life. I finally accepted that running had mutated into something unhealthy and that I needed a full stop, no questions asked. As it turns out, in the process I created the conditions to find my joy in running again, which is starting to occur.
- Embracing being highly sensitive. This trend started several years ago. I have stopped judging myself for things like craving downtime or often preferring to stay home. The highly-sensitive label gives me permission to re-write the rules for how I get to be in the world. For example, I now get to time out in social situations if I get overstimulated or tired. Like Cinderella at the ball, it’s ok to run for the exits if need be. This is not being rude to others; it’s prioritizing my well-being, which has to come first.
- Knowing I am good enough the way I am. Related to the items above is being content. In the past, I often compared myself to ideals I thought I wanted to attain. I could not see that I was just making myself feel bad. Letting go of “shoulding” on myself has made a huge difference. For example, I can read about famous celebrities these days without (well, mostly without) making myself wrong for not being “as successful” as they are. Turns out, torturing myself really sucked. Genuine self-acceptance is a lot more fun! Who knew?
*I often enjoy looking back on each year, such as I did with “Lessons Learned in 2023.”