Once again we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year. There is an inexorable inevitability about this. One day follows another, a process we can neither slow nor stop.
2025 has gone – what word would you use to describe it?
The Christmas festivities are passed. New Year celebrations are over. We are left with the return to normal work and living patterns (all hail those for whom the Christmas season means a lot MORE work), dark grey days without the cheer of twinkly Christmas trees, and indigestion. But also perhaps a smashing pile of new books to read, cookery books to work our way through, Christmas pajamas to enjoy, music to listen to, games to play.
The days of last year are gone, but as you consider the sum of those 365 single events, what is your overall impression? How would you define or categorise that?
What are the words of the year for 2025?
A quick trawl through the internet shows that the words of 2025 as rated by the big dictionaries are
- Parasocial – Cambridge Dictionary
- Rage bait – Oxford
- Vibe coding – Collins
- Slop – Merriam-Webster
Now what does that say about the state of our world? Quite sobering really. I find that list really depressing.
What is YOUR word of the year 2025?
Perhaps something like CHALLENGE, CONSOLIDATION or GROWTH if yours was a year of growing in learning and experience. Maybe last year brought turning-point sized events like marriage, changing career, retirement, moving house, children arriving or leaving, in which case you might choose CHANGE, NEW OPPORTUNITIES, or FREEDOM.
If 2025 was a difficult year, across various areas of your life such as health, finances, relationships, words that might jump out at you could include LOSS, GRIEF, HARDSHIP, STRUGGLE, SEA CHANGE.
It might be that life is very full and very busy, and the gerbil-wheel of What’s Next was spinning at full pelt. STRIVING, SURVIVING, STRESSED might define 2025 best for you.
Chances are, there is no one single word. Much more normal is to have lived a year full of a combination of events, with times of great celebration, difficult and challenging hardships, and much mundane normalness in between.
How does last year feel to you?
As you think back on 2025, so recently departed, there will be dominant emotions that affect how you perceive the year and how you will remember it in years to come.
As I muse on this, last year for us is probably best defined by UPHEAVAL. MB and I both have aging parents suffering from diminishing health and increasing need. A major job change for MB meant a complete shift in how we live for us both. Both Nearest-and-Dearest continue to grow and need a different style of parenting. Transitions – there is another word for last year. More on that here.
Nobody tells you about this stuff, nor prepares you for it.
Who were we in the years before, how much have we changed, and who are we seeking to become in the years that follow?
And that is why – for me at least – this is worth some musing at the beginning of a new year. Because time passes in a flash, and it is a rare thing indeed to stop and take stock of where we have come from, in order to consider where we want to go.
So as normal service resumes this week, perhaps take a few minutes to consider:
- How would you define last year – what happened, what emotions surface, what are the best words or phrases to encapsulate that?
- What do you learn about yourself as you consider that word?
- What might you need to do differently this year, or do more or, or let go of?
- What do you need as you go into this year?
These first few weeks of the year are a good time to take a little inventory, and do a little planning. Words – don’t always come easy, as the song says, but what word would you use to define this year past, before we get into the new one?
What is your word of the year 2025?
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