Oh 2025.

Like a rose, trampled on the ground, You took the fall and thought of me above all.

Please play that’s were that stanza is from.

Here we go again — should I really be doing this now? The year hasn’t even ended.
But it’s been one year on Substack, and retrospection has quietly become something I enjoy.
So… why not?

As at this time last year, I was so uncertain about how my year in university would go.
Now I’m here trying to ration what I can even share, because somehow my audience has grown.
Funny.

I never knew what the year would look like for me — I just desperately wanted it to be better than 2024. And honestly? It was. Very challenging, of course… but still better.

Apart from uncertainty, I carried a lot of fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear that I wouldn’t acclimatize to my environment.
Fear inherited from people’s experiences and stories.

Maybe that’s what this letter is really about:
How we unconsciously inherit the fears of others.

You know how we like to make enquiries about everything just so we can feel in control?
That’s me.
I’ve always wanted to be in control.
First child. First daughter.
Trained early to be smart, to find solutions quickly, it became my default setting.
But defaults have side effects.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t plan their lives, but some of the things that shaped me ended up building fears that intimidated me. They built paradigms in my head.
I even started to feel like I was cursed because my journey didn’t look like the people around me. Or the way I had planned and visualized it to be. I know it isn’t only me who feels this way and during this time of the year, it becomes a default feeling for most people.

(I hope you’re following. I tend to write in parables, and speak in them too. I enjoy it.)

And that’s the thing with comparison: it is a thief of joy.
We do it unconsciously, repeatedly.

Lately, as I enter a higher level academically, I’ve seen the pattern trying to repeat.
I already have biases against certain courses simply because of what my seniors told me, and I haven’t even written my first-semester exam yet.

Then this Bible verse became clear to me again:

“Guard your heart with all diligence.”

I’m starting to understand how powerful the mind is,
and how much it truly needs guarding.

I misunderstood that verse for years — I thought it was only about guarding against sexual thoughts (secondary school conditioning).
But lately, it’s been echoing in my heart when I’m in the bus on my way to school, on my way back, and even when I’m trying to scribble notes as the lecturer dictates too fast.

It’s still a journey for me.
I’ve realized complaining also became a default, another response to inherited fears from my coursemates and seniors ..I’m slowly working on it.

So I’ll leave you with this verse to ponder on:

“Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it springs the issues of life.”

Proverbs 4: 23

This is not what I originally planned to write, but here we are.
Happy one year on Substack to me.
I also lost my phone, so I don’t have many pictures to share here.

Gratitude remains my focus as we end this year.
God has truly been faithful to me.
Maybe when I close for Christmas break, I’ll sit down to give a proper, detailed year update.

I love you as always. Thank you for being with me through this one year of giving my thoughts a place to live.

Please share if it resonated with you.

This song stung me as I edited.