There’s a temptation tonight to turn the year into a courtroom.

To replay scenes. To build a case. To decide whether the year was “good” or “bad,” successful or wasted.

But Stoicism doesn’t ask for a verdict.

A year is just a stretch of time in which we did what we could with what we understood at the time.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Some things went well. Some didn’t. That’s not a moral failure. That’s life occurring in exactly the unpredictable way a sane person would expect it to. After all, and as you already know, we cannot choose outcomes — we can only choose our choices.

We don’t need to squeeze meaning out of every moment before midnight. We don’t need to extract a lesson from every mistake. The year doesn’t need our approval to end.

So let’s close the book on 2025 without slamming it, and remember that tomorrow doesn’t require a reinvention.

Tomorrow only requires our continued willingness to act well.

That’s enough.

’ve never been a fan of them. I am a fan of building better habits, at any point in the year. If that happens to overlap with new year, so be it.

If you’d like to develop a real Stoic journaling practice (not a novelty one), I guide a small group through exactly that in my Prokoptôn Journaling Program.

It’s slow, deliberate, and meant to be lived with.

If that sounds like something you’d benefit from, you can learn by clicking below.