2025 is drawing to a close..
And as each year draws to a close, there is a particular stillness that arrives alongside the festivities. It’s the quiet pause between what has been and what is yet to come.
A threshold moment. The end of one year and the beginning of another has always carried weight, but as we approach New Year’s Eve at the end of 2025, that weight feels heavier, more complex, and more emotionally charged than usual.
T.S. Eliot captured this liminal space so beautifully when he wrote:
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.”
Those lines feel especially resonant now. They invite us to reflect not only on what we have lived through, but also on what kind of voice we want to shape the future with.
As I look back over 2025, there are so many surreal thoughts and experiences milling around in my head. Questions linger. Anxieties surface. Hopes rise quietly alongside them. It has been a year marked by upheaval on a global scale; political tensions, wars, fighting, and a deep sense of uncertainty that seems to ripple across borders and into everyday life. Even when our own lives feel steady, the collective atmosphere has been anything but.
In moments like these, reflection becomes more than a ritual; it becomes a necessity. What language did we speak this year? Was it one of fear, reaction, and survival? Was it a language shaped by headlines, division, and overwhelm? Or did we, in small and personal ways also speak a quieter language, one of kindness, resilience, and care?
The end of a year gives us permission to acknowledge both. To honour what has been difficult without letting it define everything that follows. Eliot’s words remind us that we are not bound to carry the same voice forward. The language of last year does not have to dictate the tone of the next.
And so, as this year closes, I find myself asking: Which are going to be the last year’s words for you?
What phrases, emotions, or beliefs are you ready to leave behind as the clock strikes midnight? Perhaps it’s exhaustion, self-doubt, or the constant sense of rushing. Perhaps it’s the weight of old narratives that no longer fit who you are becoming.
Just as importantly, what voice are you hoping to hear as we move forward into 2026?
For me, the voice I am hoping to hear is one filled with warmth, tinged with excitement, hope, and compassion. A voice that acknowledges all that has gone before without bitterness or denial, and yet still dares to believe in what is to come. A voice that softens rather than hardens in response to the world’s challenges. A voice that chooses connection over conflict, presence over panic.
I am praying that next year’s voice will be one of peace. Not just peace in the absence of war, but peace as a way of being. Peace in conversations. Peace in decisions. Peace in how we treat ourselves and one another. In a world that often rewards loudness and urgency, peace can feel radical. Yet it is perhaps the most powerful voice of all.
The beauty of this moment, the cusp of a new year, is that it doesn’t demand grand resolutions or perfect clarity. It simply asks us to listen. To notice what is stirring within us. To choose, gently and intentionally, the tone we want to carry forward.
As 2025 fades into memory, let its words rest where they belong. Take what has shaped you, taught you, and strengthened you; and allow the rest to fall away.
Ahead of us lies an unwritten year, waiting patiently for its language, its rhythm, its voice.
May the voice you choose for 2026 be one that reflects your truest hopes. May it be steady, compassionate, and alive with possibility. And may it guide you, one word at a time, into a year that feels more aligned, more humane, and more whole.