#41: What Gets Carried Forward?

☀️  The weight of what we keep

There's something strange about the last week of December. The year isn't quite over, but it already feels like it's slipping into the past. You're caught between two states: still living in 2025, but already thinking about 2026.

And in that in-between space, a quiet question emerges: What comes with you?

Not what happened this year (that's just a list of events). Not what you hope for next year (that's still shapeless and uncertain). But what you actively choose to carry forward from this chapter into the next.

Transitions aren't passive. The end of a year doesn't automatically deliver you a clean slate or a fresh start. You don't "find" your purpose for next year waiting at the finish line. You form it by deciding what matters enough to keep, what needs to be left behind, and what deserves to evolve.

This edition is about that decision. Reflection without direction is just nostalgia, and anticipation without intention is just anxiety. The space between one year and the next isn't empty time; it's the moment when you get to choose what defines the next chapter.

📖 3 Articles to Spark Your Curiosity

1. Ride the Wave
   Charlie Munger's "competitive destruction" explains why the finest buggy whip factory becomes worthless when the horseless carriage arrives. Spotting emerging waves early and having the courage to paddle toward them before others see their potential is essential for sustained success.
   → Read on Farnam Street
   

2. Conducting a Purposeful Year-End Review
   Twenty-four prompts to help you examine 2025 with nuance before moving to 2026. Celebrate wins, acknowledge lessons, and identify what deserves to be carried forward. The goal is purposeful growth rather than perfection.
   → Read on Reading and Purpose
   

3. Your Purpose Isn't Something to Find, It's Something You Form
   Searching for purpose can breed anxiety and frustration. Purpose is already present in ideas that excite you and activities that bring vitality. It requires cultivation, not discovery.
   → Read on Psyche

🗞️ 3 Headlines Worth Exploring

1. Netflix Is Betting on Podcasts to Become the New Daytime Talk Show
   Netflix signed exclusive video deals with iHeartMedia, Barstool Sports, and Spotify as viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts monthly on YouTube in 2025. Independent podcasters worry this signals another industry bubble.
   → Read on TechCrunch
   

2. Tom Standage's Ten Trends to Watch in 2026
   Ten predictions for 2026: America's diverging 250th anniversary narratives, geopolitical drift as the old rules-based order decays, growing bond-market crisis risks, and a mixed climate picture where emissions have likely peaked but limiting warming to 1.5°C is off the table.
   → Read on The Economist
   

3. How AI Coding Agents Work and What to Remember If You Use Them
   AI coding agents use context compression and multi-agent teamwork to write code and fix bugs. They're not magic: a randomized trial found experienced developers took 19 percent longer using AI tools, despite believing they were faster.
   → Read on Ars Technica

☀️ 3 Actions to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

1. Conduct Your Own Mini Year-End Review
   Set aside 30 minutes before 2025 ends. Pick five prompts from the year-end review article (moments that made you smile, lessons learned, fears you faced, unexpected delights, ways you grew). Write without judgment and notice what stands out when you look back instead of just moving forward on autopilot.
   

2. Spot One Wave You've Been Ignoring
   Identify one emerging trend or shift in your field or life that you've been dismissing or avoiding. Spend 20 minutes researching it without judgment. The goal isn't to immediately act on it, but to practice recognizing waves early instead of waiting until everyone else is already riding them.
   

3. Schedule One "Day on Purpose" Activity
   Following the Psyche article's framework, identify one activity that is both meaningful to you and connects you to the world beyond yourself. Schedule it in the first week of 2026. Don't wait for motivation or the perfect moment. Just add it to your calendar and commit to doing it.

⚡ 6 Quick Resources

💼 To keep an eye on: Fast-Growing Companies
The fastest-growing startups of 2025 span AI search engines to canned water with edgy branding, proving innovation still drives growth despite economic challenges.
→ On Exploding Topics

🎮 To add to cart: Top Ten Gadgets of 2025
Auto-focus glasses, a vest translating plant stress into sensations, and Meta's neural wristband controller led this year's standout gadgets.
→ On Dezeen

📚 To save: Best Books of 2025
Year-end lists from NPR, NYT, The Guardian, and major literary awards, including the Booker Prize and Pulitzer, all in one place.
→ On Reddit

📺 To watch: Best TV Shows of 2025
Fifteen shows that dissected Hollywood, explored history, and proved creators still have something to say about the world we live in today.
→ On Rolling Stone

🔬 To explore: Best Inventions of 2025
TIME's 300 best inventions include household robots, needle-free epinephrine, climate-friendly steel, and a blood test for brain injury.
→ On TIME

🎵 To play: Best Songs of 2025
NPR Music's 125 favorites, curated by 60+ writers to broaden your fandom beyond algorithmic recommendations.
→ On NPR

🎲 This week’s wonderfully random corner of the internet 

🗺️ Travel Roulette

Pick your interest and region, then let this random trip generator surprise you with your next destination. The site includes destination stats like daily budget, hotel rates, peak season, and safety info, plus the ability to bookmark favorites for later.

→ Plan your next adventure using https://www.travelroulette.app/

📝 Word of the Week

Tsundoku (Japanese) - The act of acquiring books and letting them pile up unread.

At year's end, we often look at the stack of books we meant to read, the projects we intended to finish, the goals we planned to accomplish. Tsundoku isn't about failure. It's the natural result of curiosity outpacing time. The word captures that familiar sight of accumulated intentions, reminding us that what we choose to carry forward matters more than what we once thought we should.

🧘‍♀️ Question of the Week for Introspection

As 2025 ends and 2026 begins, what is one thing you've been carrying that you're ready to let go of, and what is one thing you want to make sure comes with you into the new year?

See you next Sunday! Until then, keep your eyes open, your questions big, and your sense of wonder alive.

Your curious internet friend,
Ruxandra