2025 Year in Review

I haven’t written an year in review in public before. So I thought I would write one this year in public mostly because I thought it will give me a different perspective to look back at my life. I think writing just for me might not be the most useful lens since I think it can be a bit more ego centric.

Two events that shaped the year

2025 was hard year for me in many ways. But also transformative on other ways.

There was suffering. And there was happiness.

I think two main events shaped the year for me.

The first event was losing someone close in my family.

The second one was me turning 30.

Both these events made a bit more aware of impermanence of life and everything around us.

Also made me a bit more appreciative of the moments that I am aware.

Seeking and inner work

Apart from these two events, 2025 was an year of seeking for me. A bit similar to 2024 in that way.

My main interests for most of the year remained focused around spirituality, mindfulness and topics like Non Duality, Buddhism, Consciousness etc.

I attended two sessions with Richard Lang who teaches the headless way in London. My only experience with the headless approach till that point was mostly from hearing Sam Harris talk about it in the waking up app. So it was a good experience to be surrounded with people who were into similar ideas and existential questions.

I also attended an evening session with Rupert Spira in Oxford. Rupert is kind of exactly how you might expect of him if you have watched his YouTube videos. I also asked him a question about the Advaita idea of absolute equivalence of atman and brahman and what exactly does it mean.

I also attended many meditation related events in London last year. I went to a Holotropic Breathwork event in We the Conscious which was really helpful for me in processing some long standing childhood shame associated with it.

I also explored a variety of other techniques like Gong Sound Bath in an Old Cathedral, Reiki, Yoga classes, and Ecstatic dances. Even though they all look different from outside the end result for me after doing these sessions is an increased awarness in the present moment.

I also attended an authentic relating event in London. In this events the participants are encouraged to speak from truth throughout the session and is encouraged to not use any white lies. This made me aware of how much we speak day to day is kind of noise and we do it because we have a sense that society expect us to speak like that. But it made me realize we can be much more truthful in day to day life without hurting others.

Nature and Travel

I also wen to attend Samhain in SpiritHorse in Wales. SpiritHorse is a meditation retreat center located in Wales Wilderness in a valley. I spent 3 days there, meeting like minded people, bathing in cold streams, eating some amazing vegetarian food, listening to live music and attending some meditation events. One of the events was 1 teaser of Diad where participants are paired with each other and asked to talk about who they are. They also have a full 3 day event for this which I am considering attending next year. After returning from SpriritHorse I started noticing how sensitive my mind is towards to whatever is in front of me and cannot ruminate on the object of attention. Though London made me return back to the old state of my mind pretty fast where I am mostly mindless throughout the day.

I also did my first solo camping. I camped in New Forest National Park for 2 nights. Even though I was quite uncomfortable in the beginning I soon got adjusted to the place after I setup the camp. At evenings I went for run or walk by the forest. I also discovered during one of the walk a meadow so beautiful I was tempted to name it the meadow of gods in Google Maps. But then I decided to not do that and leave it unnamed so that someone else also stumble upon it by accident into the beauty.

I also cycled to Paris from London with two of my friends. This was one of my favorite experiences of 2025. Being in the motion for 3 full days and being in home only for rest was a very rewarding experience. I also did a shorter cycling trip to Brighton last year as well. I felt that put me much more on flow state probably because I was the one doing everything. I should do more of this next year.

I also did some traveling last year. Apart from cycling to Paris, I also visited Trondheim in Norway, a beautiful small city in Northern Norway. I also visited Dieppe in France two times. First time I wanted to try the ferry from UK to France and I ended up visiting Dieppe. Second time I went there as part of our cycling trip. I also went to Mallorca in December. I loved the city and attitude of people there. I think Mallorca has a soul similar to that of India.

When I was in India, I also visited Thiruvannamalai. This was my second time visiting Thiruvannamalai. I love the city because of connection to Ramana Maharishi. And I love the sight of the Arunachala mountain from far away. On the way back from Thiruvannamalai we also visited Pondicherry. Pondicherry is probably the most beautiful city I have been in India so far. So colorful. We also visited the

Work and Building

In terms of work, I continue working at Yelp as a software engineer for the team that owns the Ads Purchase flow. I also started using AI at work during last year. Particularly claude code. I think AI wrote most chunk of code in last few months at work. Though it still seems to get stuck when debugging gets harder and I have to manually help unblock it. I want to see how much of that might change over the next year.

In terms of side projects, I worked on diff.blog on and off for a bit. The main changes I made are improving the styling of diff.blog. And I also made an year in review for users who blog on diff.blog. That was very meaningful to build.

I also built a desktop app for helping find who sends me the most email. Though I didn’t release it publicly yet.

2025 was also the year Zulip open source project turned 10 years old. I used to contribute to Zulip when I was in college soon after it was open sourced. After college I also worked full time for 4 years contributing to it remotely.

What changed?

I also started listening more to Tim Ferris podcasts in 2025. It seems like Tim Ferris is also tackling similar existential and spiritual questions at this phase in life. So a lot of his recent interviews resonated with me a lot. The ones that stand out for me are the ones with Arthur Brooks and with David Whyte.

I also got interested to the stoic Philosophy last year. I think it gives meaning to life that my seeking in non duality/consciousness does not seems to answer. Though I am just getting started on this one.

I think to summarize the year has been a lot of seeking. But I think I am slowly getting out of the seeking mode. I haven’t fully accepted there is nothing to seek yet. But I am kind of convinced there is no implicit meaning or answers hardcoded in reality. And I get to define them.

I am looking forward to what has 2026 in for me.