Some years you win. Some years you build character. Personally and globally, 2024 was bananas. It was a year that stretched me in many directions—for better or for worse. All to say, this was a character-building year for me.

Mostly, I'm happy and grateful for that, though I do wish I had approached many things differently. Not in the sense of hindsight, but by paying closer attention to my instincts and values.

Because it was a character-building year, I thought it fitting to write about it. As a disclaimer: I am deeply aware that advice often fails to resonate unless lived. Advice is always at risk of sounding like a cliché, especially when it touches on universal truths, like "time heals all wounds" which are difficult to articulate without oversimplifying.

These lessons are written for myself to serve as a reminder in years to come. At the same time, I hope they offer value to you as well.

That being said, here are the things 2024 taught me through lived experience.

Good decisions feel good.

I don't know why, and I can't explain to you how, but your body knows when you're making a good decision. There is a certain energy, a distinct physical sensation, that follows decision-making. This isn't to say that good decisions are devoid of fear or anxiety. But they have an absence of a specific emotion: disgust. The word disgust for most people elicits a viscerally negative feeling. The word choice is purposeful, because it evokes the very feeling you should learn to identify in decisions. Disgust is often synonymised with something being yucky. However, I am referring to disgust in the sense of aversion, loathing, and the polar opposite of relish.

Do not ignore this powerful indicator. You might convince yourself to overlook it because it's mistaken for fear or anxiety. Fear often comes with a sense of anticipation and readiness, whereas disgust feels like a deep, visceral rejection—a strong aversion to the choice at hand. Learn to tell the difference, or you'll be exposed to rationalising decisions that don't feel good.

This year, several pivotal decisions I made were shaped by my choice to ignore a telling signal—decisions that ended up defining my 2024. I repeatedly brushed off the loathing as if to prove something to myself. Unsurprisingly, my initial feelings were correct. It took me longer than I’d care to admit to fully acknowledge this. Luckily, going forward, I will know how to distinguish fear from disgust. I'll address fear later in this piece.

Your problems have a right to exist.

Ageing naturally comes with more responsibilities demanding your attention. Inevitably, more problems need to be solved. There is a unique temptation in your late twenties to anchor your expectation of life to a more carefree time not too long ago. You may have been fortunate enough in your early twenties to experience extended periods of minimal stress besides having to pass a few tests.

I've realised the importance of letting go of this subconscious anchor. It's simply too dangerous to wait for your problems to go away to allow yourself to enjoy life. There will always, always be more problems to solve. But there isn't more life to live—you have a laughably finite amount of it. You can't hoard life. It’s not a currency that can be saved to use in some later, problem-free future. Be wary of setting conditions of when life is worth experiencing fully.

We often talk about the weekend warrior, which is an apt analogy here, who lives for the weekends and dreads their Mondays (side note: if you consistently dread Mondays you should quit whatever you're doing). The danger is that life is happening all the time, and there can't be a set of conditions of when you're allowed to appreciate it fully.

I've had a very dark month this year, fairly recently. I stopped enjoying life because this consuming issue stole my capacity to think of anything else. Today, that problem is essentially solved, but the time is gone. It taught me that problems have a right to exist, and wishing they didn't is foolish. Waiting for them to vanish is a disservice to the life you have right now. One day you will be nostalgic for today, with all of its problems.

Rassie Erasmus has this great interview after winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup where he talks about pressure being a privilege. Growing older and solving more problems is also a privilege to be cherished.

Control is an illusion.

In March of this year, we got married in the Karoo for one specific reason: guaranteed good weather. No rain. Perfect for an outdoor ceremony and reception.

Guess what happened? A freak storm started right as my wife was about to walk down the aisle. By some miracle, she was the only one who didn’t get drenched. Everyone had to run inside. Luckily, most stayed on the venue and could get dressed, but this ended up changing all of our meticulous planning. We had to move everything at the last minute from the places we agonised over for months to get just right.

When everyone was fine, and we waited for the rain to pass, I went and sat down. After having worked for months to control every single detail of our wedding, I completely gave up. What happened next is so obvious, but I had to experience it to believe it. After giving up control, and very forcibly not being able to care about all the minutiae of the wedding, I was finally able to enjoy it. I went to the bar and had a few drinks, completely drenched, alongside similarly soaking wet friends. It turned into the best day because it rained.

My entire life I've been trying to actively control things (funnily enough, I am not an eight on my Enneagram—I'm a one) to create this illusion that I can fully influence outcomes. I only understood in a climactic moment that this simply is not true or even remotely possible. We cannot control what happens in life, and attempting to do so actually stifles us from experiencing life as it was meant to be. Step by step, moment by moment, adapting to what comes our way.

Nassim Taleb has a brilliant book, called Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. It's a book I adore, but speaking to my earlier disclaimer, it only clicked once I experienced letting go. An excerpt:

“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

The first step to antifragility is exposure, which increases when control, or the illusion thereof, is not sought after.

Stand your ground, but recognise when the battle is over.

Faced with injustice, it’s difficult to know exactly how to approach a retaliation and even whether you should. This is especially true when faced with a large institution, organisation, or even a once-close friend. It's hard to say where to draw the line between letting go and taking a stand, but a good barometer is whether something genuinely bothers you after a week of inaction.

I was faced twice with an adversarial situation this year, and I instinctively knew that action needed to be taken, which I did. It culminated in multi-week exchanges, which cannot be overstated how draining and consuming they became. But if you believe something is right, you need to stand your ground. That, however, is not the important part of the lesson.

What’s most important is recognising when the battle is over. Stay clear on the outcome you aim to achieve, remain open to compromise, and stop once that point is reached. Afterwards, come to terms with its completion and take care of yourself to recover the energy used.

There’s an undeniable allure to the fight that we must remain aware of. While it’s uncomfortable to confront this side of ourselves, the shadow, as Carl Jung highlighted, is always present. In those times, it's important to recognise when to keep the shadow at bay. Anger can serve as a potent fuel to endure difficult situations. However, prolonged dancing with anger is destructive and must be controlled once the conflict ends.

When the battle is over, accept the outcome and move on.

Fear is the mind-killer

Frank Herbert wrote one of the most famous sci-fi novels of all time; Dune. In it, he described the Litany Against Fear, recited by the characters faced by danger and overcome by fear.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

This paragraph holds immense power that stays with me constantly. Earlier, I reflected on how fear can signal a good decision, which I still believe. Fear, however, must be confronted. It signifies imminent growth, the act of conquering the unknown and rising to challenges. Yet, fear also carries the danger of crippling us.

Left unchecked, fear grows, eroding our confidence and sows doubt in our abilities. It becomes resistance, procrastination and extinguishes the fire within us. Left unchallenged, it will bring total obliteration to what your potential can allow. To the life you are able to build. Herbert’s declaration that fear is the mind-killer remains profoundly accurate.

I hold the view that we are morally obligated to pursue the best version of ourselves. Wasted potential is inexcusable, regardless of the circumstances. Each of us has unique gifts meant to be developed into something extraordinary, and fear is often the sole barrier standing in the way.

You're allowed to have lofty goals. You are allowed to chase ambitions that seem out of reach, and to fail in the process. Not only that, but you can try your best and fall short. You can stick your neck out and have people doubt you. You can dream big and take risks that seem crazy.

What's not okay, what we cannot afford, what's never allowed, is to let fear stop us.

Final thoughts

Stepping into a new year is one of my favourite human made-up things. Nothing really changes, of course. It's just another day. But I love the renewed mindset it elicits. We can take what we learnt and carry it into new, unknown situations.

My hope is that this piece resonates with other people who endured a year of transformation and growth. May 2025 bring you victories.

Let us aim to trust our instincts when making decisions and to face our fears head-on. We have come to recognise that our problems, far from being unwelcome burdens, are the fabric of life in motion; they shape us, test us, and grant us the privilege of responsibility. We know that control is but an illusion: the sooner we embrace the inevitability of change, the more resilient—and antifragile—we become.

While we may not control every outcome, we can steer the course, however slightly, towards something better.

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Thanks to Mignon Duminy for reading drafts of this.

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