It's a new year, yet I remain the same old me.

You can't shed your identity simply because the calendar year changes. These arbitrary numbers have no real connection to your life.

What truly impacts your life? Your choices and actions.

So, regardless of the year, I'd remain the same miserable person unless I choose to change my actions.

That's why I've stopped focusing on New Year's resolutions and started embracing New Year's assessments.

Rather than setting goals and hoping the New Year hype will carry me toward them, I'm reflecting on the actions I should leave behind and considering how to adopt new ones throughout the year.

What do I need to change, and how can I make those changes?

First, I need to let go of my dopamine-driven yet unrewarding activities. This year, I'm focusing on lowering my dopamine threshold and relearning how to find contentment simply by observing my surroundings.

Second, I need to abandon my disorganized routines. While I understand that I can't control every detail of my day, I can at least choose how to spend my personal time. I plan to create "action pools"—lists of at least five activities to choose from at any given moment. I'll select the one that resonates with me at the time and follow the corresponding routine.

Finally, I need to set aside my carefree approach to finances and start focusing seriously on saving and generating income.

 I'm sure I'll still be mostly the same me by the end of the year, but hopefully with more subtance as a person and more meaningful changes in my life. 

When I wake up, one of my favorite things to do is open the blinds that completely block out the light and watch the breeze gently caress the trees outside my window, fully embracing the new day’s light. 

I also have a little ritual: each time I gaze outside, I search for a squirrel. I used to spot one or two quite easily, as if they were waiting for me to discover them. They would leap from tree to tree, as if urging me to join in their play..

Nowadays, I can’t find any squirrels anymore, and I feel like a youthful part of my day is also gone. 

...

Yet, I never stop looking for them.

...

It’s raining hard right now. The rainy season is always tough for me. I often have sleepless nights because of the sound of the rain. It’s difficult to relax and fall into a deep sleep when the rain forcefully crashes against the roof.

However, I often have many sleepless nights even when it isn’t raining. Instead of the sound of rain, it’s the noise of my restless mind screaming what I should be thinking, rather than allowing me to shut it off and fall asleep.

Sometimes, the thoughts my mind keeps saying are helpful, sparking creativity and productivity. But often, they just churn over the same things endlessly, like an unwelcome chant that desperately demands I remember every word and every feeling attached to it.

With rain, I know I have no control—I can only wait it out or try to block out the sound. But with my own mind, I feel like I should be able to control it, yet somehow, I just can’t.

My restless mind can go on for hours unless I do something about it. So, I invented stories to calm my mind. Sometimes, I focus on my breathing. But more often than not, I simply let my thoughts run their course, surrendering to their relentless. 

I just let my mind go off the rails until it crashes and burns, then soothe myself with the afterthought ashes. It’s certainly not a healthy way to fall asleep, but it is what it is.

In the morning, however, I like the sound of rain. What sometimes makes me restless can become something I welcome at other times. Strange, isn’t it?

The natural, steady rhythm of rain makes me feel grounded and surprisingly calm. The anticipation of it stopping gives me something to look forward to. And the fresh smell afterward makes me feel refreshed, grateful, and alive.

It’s the same, but not quite so, with my restless mind. I love thinking during the day. I enjoy the hum and rhythm of my thoughts. They become melodies that play continuously throughout the day.

I let them hit all the high and low notes as they wish, embracing whatever they urge me to hear. I love them so much that I crave more and feel uneasy during the long silences when nothing emerges.

The anticipation of great ideas raining down on me makes me feel even more restless than the urge to quiet my mind when I try to sleep.

I keep waiting and hoping my thoughts never stop flowing, because the afterthought is never as great as the active train of thought. That’s when I feel most human—while thinking.

It’s strange and fascinating how I pray for my mind to stop at night, yet pray for it never to stop during the day.

Perhaps, this is why people say there’s a time and place for everything, and why being in the right place at the right time, with the right mindset, feels so precious.

We now, unfortunately, live in a world that promotes fast and raw information instead of purposeful and polished wisdom. We continue to feed the flow of algorithm-driven information (using the term “communication” feels too generous these days), without reflecting on what messages we truly want to communicate.

I fear we are racing toward a finish line that might actually be a cliff, allowing our minds to age faster than necessary, while never deliberately strengthening our ability to think things through and transform knowledge into wisdom.

It is a race to the bottom, through and through.

To make matters worse, a lot of people now outsource all thinking processes to generative AI  (I would never call it Artificial Intelligence, so let's just pretend it’s the abbreviation of Artificial Information.) I do not entirely condemn using these tools—I admit I often use them myself for certain tasks—as long as you are the one holding the reins of the thinking process.

However, when you stop using your own mind to truly understand your thinking, you stop learning to understand yourself. When you stop understanding yourself, you cannot refine your thoughts and identities to shine, and that process of polishing is precisely when the sprouts of your wisdom begin to spread to the world.

Therefore, in my opinion, the problem is not generative AI itself, but how our societies have stopped promoting purposeful and thoughtful forms of communication.

People love to point out “AI slops,” but turn a blind eye when human-generated content is sloppy or even harmful, excusing it as being “real” or “true to yourself.” I hope, for the best for everyone in this world, that the definition of being real does not reduce into mere rawness of expression, without the polish of thoughtful reflection. The idea of expressing “your real self” as quickly and as frequently as possible pains me—and, I hope, pains you and future generations—deeply.

Speaking your mind, which once meant expressing well-considered thoughts aligned with your values, has now become shouting whatever crosses your mind in the name of being “honest” and “real.”

Editing and crafting your thoughts is now often seen as an outdated and ill-advice—unless it means filtering your identities to fit algorithm-driven trends—while sharing the first draft has become the encouraged practice.

We sadly mistake honesty and authenticity for the spontaneous and superficial layers of ourselves.

...

To me, it feels like living in a primitive society that keep setting fires, quickly one after another, just because they look bright and shiny, without the skill to put them out or even utilize them for good uses.

Unintentionally and unconsciously, we are burning down the forest of wisdom just to see who can start the fire fastest and brightest.

The worst part is that we might be too late to stop these overwhelming flames. And even if that is not the case, we might not know how to bring people to solve these issues collectively.

This may sound pessimistic, but I only wish to live a good, healthy life, and not necessarily a long one. Because I'm not that eager to witness where the world ends up after we burn wisdom to the ground and lose the ability to grow new trees of insight ever again.

…

Or… perhaps those “AIs” will one day become better thinking machines than the whole humanity itself, mercifully letting us live amid the flames of our own making.

Who knows? The realest and most honest side of humanity might shine brightest, then. 

I’m staring at the screen, a cold sweat beading on my forehead, my heart pounding like a drum in my chest, caught in the agonizing dilemma of fight or flight. Instead, my mind freezes, while my trembling hand hesitates—each millimeter closer to the screen feels like stepping toward a cliff’s edge. Before me lurks my worst nightmare and my sworn enemy, an ever-present shadow in my life that has stolen my sleep ever since I first learned to type: that little, merciless, unforgiving “delete” button. 

It taunts me, daring me to make the final cut, a merciless executioner of my digital life—whispering that once something is gone, it’s gone forever.

...

And for most of my life, I agreed with it.

...

The Fear of Letting Go

Hovering over that button and confronting this fear feels like a sacrificial ritual—offering up my most cherished possessions in the hope of prosperity, each time demanding a heavier toll.

Every time I approach the button, it’s as if I’m standing on a battlefield, frozen by fear, caught between the desperate urge to hold on and the crushing need to let go. Pressing delete isn’t just erasing files, photos, or emails to me; it feels like setting fire to my most treasured belongings, watching them turn to ash in slow motion. This might sound exaggerated but perfectly captures the dread I feel when facing those delete buttons.

The Weight of the Past

To me, pressing delete feels like tearing pages from the diary of my life—pages filled with moments, lessons, and pieces of my very soul—pages I can never rewrite, and now, never again, get to revisit. I’m only left to wonder what part of myself got left behind.

Bulk deletion is even more terrifying. For some, it’s a fresh start; for me, it feels like wiping out my entire carefully curated world in one single sweep. Starting anew seems like redoing everything from scratch, compounded by the heavy burden of losing my past and the endless time spent agonizing over the decision. I’d rather live surrounded by piles of untouched items than face the terrifying emptiness that follows deletion.

You could say clinging to the past—even at the expense of future opportunities—is my specialty.

I know my behavior is irrational, but in my twisted mind, I can’t find a way to rationalize pressing that delete button either. Every trace of my past feels equally—if not more—important than my present or future, because it reflects who I was, what I did, and what I valued at the time.

I suppose I see everything I’ve encountered—or even things I’ve barely noticed—as extensions of myself. Thus, pressing that button feels like erasing my essence—every file, email, and photo a thread in the mosaic of my story. Deleting them dismantles me, piece by piece.

I know this isn’t true, but I can’t shake the feeling every time I approach that button. My mind traps me in scarcity, convinced that these moments are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and discarding them means losing the possibility of reclaiming them forever.

I struggle to believe that good things will come up in my life again—perhaps not exactly the same, but in new forms. There’s even the possibility that something better might come my way if only I could declutter and make space for it.

I know letting go is necessary, but, most of the time, my fear of loss weighs heavier than the hope of gain. But it’s also true that letting go of what doesn’t matter is a good thing. After all, how can one truly appreciate the beautiful sight before them if weighed down by an overwhelming load of belongings?

A New Approach: Growth Through Letting Go

So this year, I’m determined to face my nightmare head-on—to transform the delete button from a terrifying executioner into an unexpected ally—turning this nightmare ritual of loss into a tribute to my self.

I aim to grow comfortable with letting go of parts of my past and to make space for what lies ahead. Letting go should not be a betrayal of who I was—but an act of courage for who I might become. I’ll make peace with doors that cannot reopen—and to embrace the new free space with a smile, rather than frowning over what’s lost.

I will reframe the delete button: no longer a symbol of loss, but a tool for reprioritization and reinvention. Each erasure is a chance to shed the unnecessary, to grow lighter, to evolve.

If that dreaded delete button demands a sacrifice, then so be it—because a calmer mind and a more fulfilling life are worth surrendering my past self for. I’ll gladly trade relics of my past for the currency of clarity and purpose

True growth isn’t measured in what we clutch, but in what we dare to release.

From now on, I choose to fix my gaze on the horizon ahead—not the rearview mirror of the past—as I step forward into the future. No longer with clenched fists like before, but with open palms, ready to embrace whatever lies ahead. It’s time to lighten my load, breathe in the fresh air, and truly appreciate the beautiful horizon that awaits me.