Jan 2, 2026

Reflecting on 2025, the first year of my 20s

Time does speed up as you get older and this trend will continue. So in some sense, even though I’m only 20, I’m already ~40% done with life. Before I know it, I will die and cease to exist. The clock is ticking whether you want to dwell on it or not. My hope is the potential energy within me is translated into good action in the world.

Where I went:

• Park City, UT: Skiing outside California is fun.
• Columbia (Cartagena): Worth your time. Had (another) great Spring Break with college friends.
• Ithaca, NY: Not as quiet as I expected. Had fun with college friends at Cornell.
• San Francisco, CA: Excited to live here, but dev energy didn’t meet expectation and it’s surprisingly cold.
• Denver, CO: Good infrastructure, it’s a model city like Boston. The mountains are beautiful (nothing like California, though).
• Austin, TX: Unexpectedly young and vibrant.
• Guatemala (Guatemala City, Lake Atitlan, Antigua): Beautiful!
• India (Mumbai, Udaipur): Returning after 10 years. My favorite trip of 2025 – should’ve come here years ago.

Who I spent time with:

• My 5 closest friends in college (60%)
• Family (20%)
• Other peers in college (10%)
• High school friend group (10%)

What am I proud of?

• Physical health: I got flexible and strong in ways I didn’t expect. Seeing progress at the start of the year propelled me forward. What was different about this year? Prioritizing enjoyment and sustainability over optimization. When I didn’t feel like doing an exercise I would skip it. When I wanted to just do cardio, I did that. This made it easier to build a routine around the gym. Because the gym was fun I was happy to go every morning before class. I wasn’t even thinking about progress and it showed up.

• Committing to a Master’s in Computer Science: I am internally motivated to do this degree and that feels great. It’s not for a job or to self-aggrandize but because of genuine interest and engagement with the subject topic. I took two summer courses (CIS 2400 and CIS 2620) that cemented it.

• Recruiting for Investment Banking and landing it: I initially put up a lot of resistance but was convinced it would be net positive to try. I am now quite confident that it was. It is more optionality that allows me to take more risk.

• Growing mindfulness and distance from thought. Not attaching to thought is the best way to behavior change and good emotional regulation. This really is a superpower you can develop with practice. It is also effortless. I notice that the line between my “meditation practice” and just being aware during regular life starts to disappear.

What I am ashamed of?

• Excess hedonism: Without purpose we just seek pleasure. Lots of instant gratification that prevented me from building stuff that actually lasts (fun is fleeting).

  • Wasted a lot of time purposelessly socializing: Endlessly socializing is a way to escape your real responsibilities. At some point you are in a negative feedback loop with the people around you. Wake up. There is a real urgency to do things because the window for risk-taking is closing (you will have a family soon).

• Lack of risk-taking: I wanted more new experiences this year. More new people. More opportunities I capitalized on. Instead I opted for comfort and safety. That’s not good because growth can only come from new experiences. Sam Altman has good instincts on this: “I think what risk actually looks like is not doing something that you will spend the rest of your life regretting.” I already regret not doing things.

What were my learnings? (What common sense did I internalize?)

• Beware the thinking mind. I look back and cannot believe how many mistakes I repeat; I am quite insane. Thoughts often become the tool of a mind that chases comfort (inaction) and pleasure. We perpetually justify bad actions. Do not trust the overly intellectual reasons you create for doing certain things.

  • Avoid overly abstract/meta thinking. First, my ability to think clearly about abstract ideas (epistemology, metaphysics, the “big questions”) is poor. I have blind spots. Second, you will find yourself existentially depressed/uncertain. We must delude ourselves to maintain sanity (Alain de Botton). One must imagine Sisyphus willfully ignorant.

  • Talk is cheap. Especially when I talk to myself. My talk can be negative signal (talk frequently substitutes action). I have become great at making empty promises to myself. Again and again the lesson is clear: I need a bias to action.

• You become like the people around you. No one is bigger than their peer group. You are inevitably influenced by the people around you. First by the practical activities of their life, then the habits they have, then the beliefs they have (even those about themselves). Choosing who you are around is one of the highest leverage decision to make.

• The world does not know how capable you are. Nor is it knocking on your door to find out. You have to prove yourself to gain trust and credibility. People trade on how they perceive you, so put effort into being perceived the right way. Doing things for status (how people value you) is not vain. Building social currency is instrumental to doing good in the world. Unless you are Newton you cannot be an anti social.

• The healthy man has many desires, but the sick man has one. More and more of my friends parents are falling sick. Seeing that reorients what you deem important. Since most of this is out of your control, the best perspective is gratitude when things are good. Cherish these days as everyone around you is young and healthy. It only gets worse.

Broad goals for 2026:

• Be a better Muslim. Islam has a great practical framework to combat the degeneracy of the modern world. Also, religion is genius because it is social, cult-like: you are not fighting temptation yourself. Peer pressure can start to serve you. I am indebted to my parents for instilling this base moral framework; what is repeated into your psyche before age ~12 is really sticky. I plan to do the same with my kids.

• Work on more personal projects and keep building. I have problems with the traditional approach to career which goes something like this: 1) Choose a domain after undergrad 2) Spend a few decades developing 0.1% expertise 3) trade your knowledge for money. How do you know what you like? How do you know what you are good at? How do you know what the world will need? I want another decade of optionality and general competence building before I specialize. Also selfishly commitment means giving up other interests. That’s difficult because my engagements with the world don’t fit neatly into one category. A better model is to just work on the next project that interests you. If it’s engaging it generally means it’s something you’re already good at, something you’re getting better at, and something that’s useful to the world. Just keep working on these projects and have faith.

Finally, the 80 year view: what constitutes a victory in life?

• How to win 2026: I’m keeping this private for now but will share in the future
• How to win my 20s: find a great life partner.
• How to win my 30s: raise great children.
• How to win my 40/50s: spend social/economic currency to do real good in the world (point of highest leverage).
• How to win my 60/70s: maintain physical and cognitive health.

But again, the real victory is health. Cherish every day you and loved ones remain healthy. Two truths:

(1) Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. (2) Some plan is better than no plan.