2025: Year In Review
- WonderHatch Publishing
- 23 hours ago
- 5 min read
Here I am writing my first blog post at the very kind request of my friend Lejoi, so here is my Year In Review 2025!
Year in review
💙 6 key lessons I took away
Step back and trust that leaving is the right call.
In quintessentially exaggerated Ron-glish, 2025 was a year of dramatic events for me. It taught me profound lessons in the friendship department. My closest friends were sources of warmth and radiance, propelling me towards the finish line and relieving me of my insecurities. But, there were also some whose values I didn’t align with over time. I needed stability, comfort, and recognition, which I didn’t quite feel.
The truth is, you need to know what feels effortlessly good for you. Companionship is often unfulfilling when you're working to fulfil another. It cannot be truly fulfilling if all you're doing is listening to someone talk about their mesmerising, spectacular life in technicolour and rainbows, and all you can do is sit there, listen, watch, acknowledge, backchannel and provide a positive response to appease another. If you're not given the space to open up about your unfiltered self, at some point, you're probably going to feel drained. As a sentimental person, it is difficult to leave friendships behind, but sometimes, it is perhaps necessary to live a more energising life. There are seasons in life, there are people who come and go, and it's ok to relinquish some of those connections if it frees you from burden.
You can be the bulb in any room, no matter how boring or unrelatable you think you are.
Literally no one who knows me would say I'm a particularly energetic person. Truth be told, my serious resting face gives off don't ask me any questions and stay away from me vibes. At best, on a day I'm unhinged, maybe I'm borderline funny? So one day, when I heard from one of my singers that her boyfriend felt like I was a bulb that brightened up the room, I smiled. It was an important lesson for me. For one, don't let your stereotypes and 'expected' persona guide your energy. You are never too dull to radiate positive energy. Surround yourself with activities you feel energised by and people you love. Naturally, you will become a source of joy for others.
Do what brings you purpose. Credit comes secondary.
Yes, credit matters. It opens doors to jobs, opportunities, and even the world stage.
But credit means very little if it isn’t rooted in conviction. You can usually tell the difference. There’s success that’s measured, collected, and displayed and another that comes from caring deeply about the work itself. The former performs well. The latter lasts. You can hear it in how someone talks about their work, whether they care more about the result or the reason it exists at all.
Spending too long mourning something that wasn’t meant for you keeps you from what comes next.
As some of you are probably interested, I thought I’d share an update in the love department. After a turbulent 2024 marked by a few wrong turns and misplaced feelings, 2025 became a year of recovery, one that taught me how to step back from an attachment that was never meant to be returned, and to accept that some hearts are simply oriented elsewhere… This helped me find peace and value in the many other facets of life.
Some wins feel small only because we’ve grown into them.
Lofty goals sometimes come true, but when we finally arrive at the destination, they no longer feel like a win, and that's because we've grown into them. We've taken micro steps that have led us to believe that our goals are no longer as impossible as they seemed to be a year ago. And that's good. What's important, though, is learning to still celebrate how far we've come. The constant chase for more without embracing the interlude is a recipe for burnout.
Don't plan your goals. Start before you're certain.
Achieving your goals sounds like a mammoth task. Waiting for confidence is a mistake. Clarity doesn’t come before you begin. It comes from starting to do whatever you set out to achieve. Most things only start to make sense once you’re already in motion.
Labels are hurtful.
Labels flatten people. They reduce a complex, evolving person into a single, visible trait. As my now-favourite Linguist Gordon Allport observed, once a label becomes socially salient, it crowds out everything else, leaving little room for alternative ways of being seen.
🎧 Music Rewind
Top song of the year
Apple Music recap says this is Taylor Swift's Wood, which I was super super obsessed with (the clean version) when I first heard it because of how different and animated it sounds, but I think one that excited me throughout 2025 was Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco's Call Me When You Break Up. Post-2024 hangover ig?
Top Musical Theatre song of the year
100% Paul & Pasek's Waiting on A Wish for Snow White Live Action! A big pity the show fell flat cos this song is ridiculously good and Dear Evan Hansen-level catchy.
Song that carried you through a hard week
Taylor Swift's Sweeter Than Fiction has always been that one song I loved. It's dreams come true with cutesy giant vibes? hahahaha
Song I played on repeat and still didn’t get tired of
Moana's We Know The Way (Te Fenua ta Malie) which even inspired by 2025 music composition for choir Baila baila baila ven!
One lyric that refused to leave my head
Very 2018-coded but still love it to bits, especially after I performed it this year "Even when the dark comes crashing through / When you need a friend to carry you / And when you're broken on the ground / You will be found"
🎬 Film & TV Rewind
A film that changed how I see something
No question AT ALL! Bring Mich Nach Hause - Shortfilm. I don't know how I even came across this film, but it is an absolute beauty in pure storytelling that is evergreen and profoundly true in our world. A story of friendship told in a remarkably simple yet powerful manner. Please give it a watch!
A show I binged faster than I'd admit
haha! Any delusional vertical drama
The Tutor Trap
Tell Me Not To Love You
Oops! Nerdy Girl Is mY kitten
and more!
📚 Reading Rewind
An book that reshaped how I think
Adam Aleksic's superb AlgoSpeak book!!!! A beautiful book about how social media has reshaped the language we use (and how we innovate linguistically to circumvent the TikTok algorithm). Highly recommended for linguistic nerds :)
Another great read
Laura Spinney's PROTO
✈️ Places & Moments
Places that felt grounding
For sure, Amsterdam, Ghent and what I like to think of as my second home — Paris this year!
A moment that felt small but mattered
A beautiful family in Ghent, whom we met in Brussels, graciously offered us a tour around the city and into their beautiful home. Friendship truly transcends borders and cultures.
🎭 My biggest pride of 2025
This year was also a monumental year of growth for my musical endeavours and a year filled with deep passion about the things I love most. I arranged and wrote 13! songs (two of my favourites were written while I was on vacation in Phuket in March and in Paris in December
I premiered a series of works including My World Wears Chains, 2024 Phoenix Boys Choir's New Works Rising Choral Composition Competition finalist.
Watch my 2025 rewind!
@ronloo on Instagram
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