12.31.25 // Fire

Fire.
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Starting in 2015, @nick_kleiner and I have picked a “word of the year” towards the end of each December.
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It started on a snowy morning in Washington, D.C., with both of us huddled over our coffees wondering what the next year would bring, and discussing the restrictive nature of “New Year’s resolutions”.
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On that morning, we decided to choose words instead of resolutions because we didn’t want rigid goals, we didn’t want numbers, and we didn’t want to create unhealthy expectations in the coming months.
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The rules: the word could be anything, but it stays throughout the year. It could be inspirational, grounding, or motivational. It could be a noun, a verb, or an adjective. There were no limits.
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2016, the year of courage.
2017, there wasn’t a word.
2018, the year of truth.
2019, the year of growth.
2020, the year of freedom.
2021, the year of trust.
2022, the year of bold.
2023, the year of surrender.
2024, the year of audacity.
2025: the year of perspective.
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And 2026?
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2026 is the year of fire.
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Not the kind that burns everything down in a moment of spectacle, but the kind that casts light slowly, that warms as much as it transforms, that asks to be tended rather than feared.
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There is a particular heat that arrives when something matters, a quiet insistence in the chest that keeps returning, even after you’ve tried to talk yourself out of it.
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This feels like a year of letting that heat remain, of resisting the reflex to dim it for comfort or ease, of allowing intensity to exist without assuming it means something is wrong.
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Fire has a way of clarifying what wants to move and what is ready to be shaped, and it asks for presence more than control, for care rather than restraint.
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Fire feels like a return to something more instinctive, a way of being awake inside my own life again.
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2026, I’m ready to burn bright.