This is my 100th newsletter edition, a milestone I didn’t think I’d reach this year. When 2025 began, I was brimming with plans and possibilities.
By mid-year, I found myself navigating some of the most difficult times I’ve experienced professionally. As the year closes, I’m settling into a new role that I shaped through networking and skill repositioning. Nothing extraordinary, but not nearly as bleak as things appeared during those challenging months.
2025 became a decisive year because of what I learned about resilience, meaning, and the art of staying intact when everything feels uncertain.
1. (Blind) Hope is a Dangerous Thing…
This year taught me the crucial distinction between optimism and blind optimism. I learned about the Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral James Stockdale, who survived eight years as a prisoner of war. He observed that the optimists, who believed they’d be released by Christmas, then Easter, then Thanksgiving, were the ones who died of broken hearts. The survivors were those who confronted the brutal facts of their reality while maintaining unwavering faith that they would prevail.
The optimal mindset isn’t pure optimism, which leaves you unprepared when adversity strikes, nor pessimism, which destroys motivation entirely. It’s preparing for difficult outcomes while maintaining hope. By acknowledging that bad things can happen to you, that you’re not immune to setbacks, you build genuine confidence in your ability to handle whatever comes.
I struggled with this deeply. “It won’t happen to me” is comforting until it does happen. This year forced me to accept that you’re ultimately on your own.
What this looked like in practice: I started every week by asking “What’s the worst-case scenario here, and can I survive it?” Once I’d mapped the bottom, maybe three months of runway, could move back with family, had skills that transferred to adjacent fields, the fear lost its paralyzing grip. I could plan from reality instead of hope.
2. Finding Joy in the Moment
During the difficult months, I kept returning to a Japanese concept: Ichigo Ichie: “one encounter, one lifetime.” Each moment is unique and unrepeatable.
I segmented my days into spaces that could be joyful in themselves. Morning walks became sacred, independent of what the rest of the day had in store for me. Evening conversations with friends stood alone as complete experiences, untainted by an uncertain future.
During tough times, it’s easy to let one bad experience poison everything else. But those small, contained moments of contentment: a good book, a satisfying meal, a creative breakthrough. These aren’t consolation prizes. They’re the actual substance of life, continuing their quiet work even when everything else feels unstable.
This micro-perspective prepared me for its opposite: learning to zoom out to see the larger pattern.
3. Zooming Out to See What Really Matters
Astronauts describe experiencing the “Overview Effect”—seeing Earth from space as a tiny marble in an infinite void, suddenly feeling profound connection with all humanity. Their earthly concerns, once so urgent, appear trivial from that distance.
Obviously, I couldn’t go to space, but I learned to zoom out deliberately. When rejection emails arrived or opportunities evaporated, I’d ask: “Will this matter in five years? Ten?” Usually, the answer was no. The career setback that felt catastrophic in October would barely register as a footnote by next October.
My actual practice: I wrote in detail about devastating experiences that have now lost their sting. Problems that appeared insurmountable. Excruciating times that felt permanent. When down with dejection, I’d open that file and remember: I’ve survived 100% of my worst days so far.
This puts your pain in perspective. Negativity dominates our mind because bad news happens suddenly while good news accumulates gradually. A rejection arrives in one devastating moment; the slow building of resilience, skills, and character happens so incrementally that we barely notice it.
I learned not to internalize these circumstances as verdicts on my worth. A job rejection wasn’t the universe declaring my inadequacy: it was a circumstantial event in a complex system with countless variables beyond my control.
4. Accepting the Work Due to You
Carl Jung said that unnecessary suffering comes from refusing to accept the “legitimate suffering” that comes with being human. We can’t escape either the work or the consequences due to us.
Fighting against the reality of my situation only aggravated an already difficult experience. Acceptance didn’t mean surrender; it meant embracing it as my current chapter. It required me to make long-term plans within my reality rather than looking for miracles.
When the problem eventually receded, it wasn’t by itself. It happened because I stayed intact long enough for my groundwork to bear fruit. Waiting proved hardest of all. But while I was waiting, I was also maintaining routines, building skills, and showing up.
5. Building a Multidimensional Life
Perhaps the most important lesson: separate identity from achievement. Alain de Botton notes that one of the best protections against disappointment is having a lot going on. Not as distraction, but as a genuine investment in multiple sources of meaning.
I started realizing that my goals are one dimension of a multidimensional life. Their achievement or non-achievement doesn’t determine my life’s value.
What saved me: Books, courses, and this newsletter. Even during the worst weeks, I had 500+ people reading my thoughts every week. That mattered independently of any job outcome. My morning writing practice, before I did anything else, gave me a sense of creation when everything else felt like rejection. Weekly outings with family became non-negotiable.
When rejection came, these other aspects of my life continued providing meaning: creative work, relationships, learning, contribution. No single outcome could collapse my entire world because I’d built multiple foundations.
Jorge Luis Borges said, “All things have been given to us for a purpose… All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.“
This year gave me plenty of raw material. Here’s the next 100!
Musings by Madhav 
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