2025 has been the most reflective year of my life.

Maybe it’s an age thing. Being in your mid to late thirties does that to you. You start looking around and asking questions you didn’t have the patience or courage to ask before.

Where is my life actually going?
Is this really what I want for myself?
Not just professionally, but in every sense.
Life. Work. Relationships. The country I live in. The pace I keep.

For most of my thirties, my career came first. Always. I gave it everything I had. Time, energy, ambition, focus. And to be clear, I don’t regret that. I’ve had a solid, successful career. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown professionally, emotionally, and as a person.

But lately, especially with forty no longer feeling like some distant concept, I’ve started questioning things. Even the small, seemingly trivial ones.

Is the way I dress for my corporate life still how I want to show up in the day to day world?
Is what I’m eating actually serving me?
Is being so agreeable at work and in my personal relationships the right move for me?
Is being constantly “on,” always working, always chasing the next thing, really how I want to spend the rest of my life?

Thankfully, and I genuinely mean thankfully, I am single. I don’t have the responsibility of supporting a family right now. Because if I’m honest, the way I’ve been living these past few years would not have allowed a relationship or family to thrive. It would have failed miserably.

And that realisation alone says a lot.

I’m not getting any younger. And the world, too, is not what it was a decade or two ago. Sometimes I catch myself wondering, did society peak somewhere in the nineties? Or is that just nostalgia talking? Are there other eighties and nineties kids who feel this way too? If you do, please tell me I’m not alone.

Without slipping into negativity, I do want to say this. The last decade has taught me a lot. I’ve evolved in ways I couldn’t have imagined. But despite that growth, there’s a quiet voice inside me saying, this cannot be it.

I want more from life. And I genuinely believe I deserve better than what I currently have in several areas. There is still so much to see, to do, to explore, to learn.

None of us have life figured out. Especially not right now, with so much uncertainty in the world. Taking things one day at a time feels not just sensible, but necessary.

And yet, despite all of that, I still feel a little lost.

If you’re around my age and feel the same, you know exactly what I mean.

Maybe being lost isn’t a bad thing. Maybe it’s actually a sign that something new is trying to emerge.

I look at people in my life who are exactly the same as they were ten or twenty years ago. Same routines. Same habits. Same complaints. Same conversations. They might call it contentment, and if they are truly happy, I’m genuinely glad for them.

But for me? That thought terrifies me.

I get bored very quickly doing the same things over and over again. Always have. That’s probably why my professional life has jumped across industries and roles. Food, sports, finance, events, tourism, SaaS. Marketing, sales, operations, management, leadership. Anything to keep life from becoming monotonous.

But now I’m standing at a different kind of crossroads.

What’s next?
Is this it?
Or is it okay to pivot?
To explore something entirely different?
To try something new, like this blog?

Here’s the part that feels big to admit.

I haven’t felt this kind of joy in my professional life in over a decade.

And that’s saying a lot, considering how good my career has been.

This feels different. This feels like I’m doing something for myself. Without KPIs. Without performance reviews. Without worrying whether someone above me will approve the outcome.

What does that mean for me?

Is it okay to go against societal norms at this stage of life?
What if I pursued this more seriously and it didn’t work out?
Would I have thrown away a successful career?

And then I ask myself something else.

Who decides that?

The people who might judge me. Are they paying my bills? Buying my groceries? Taking care of me when I’m sick? No.

So why should their opinions matter more than my own happiness?

My biggest fear has never been failure. It’s regret.

Growing older and thinking, I wish I had tried that. I wish I had listened to myself.

If you try something and it doesn’t work out, you can pivot again. You can go back. You can do something else. But at least you’ll know. That matters far more to me than playing it safe forever.

Every day can be day one. No matter your age. No matter your circumstances.

You just need the courage to start.

There will always be things you can control and things you can’t. Stressing about the latter is pointless. Life without uncertainty would be unbearably dull anyway.

What matters is knowing yourself.

And I do.

I know what I like. What I don’t. What I want. What I absolutely refuse to tolerate. Life forced me to grow up early, and in doing so, it also gave me time to reflect. To decide what kind of life I actually want to build.

Here’s the uncomfortable question I wish more people would ask themselves.

If you removed family expectations, societal pressure, and other people’s opinions, would you still be where you are right now?

Most people never sit down, truly sit down, alone, without distractions, and have that conversation with themselves. And I think that’s why so many people feel lost later on. The unexamined life always finds a way to surface, sometimes through anxiety, burnout, addiction, or emotional numbness.

I started 2026 with one intention. To be more present with myself. To sit with my emotions, even briefly, every day. To name them. To feel them.

I want to live my most authentic life. Not a perfect one. An honest one.

That’s also why I stepped back from social media. I started questioning everything in 2025. The algorithms. The performative connections. The relationships that exist out of obligation rather than truth. Even family ties that feel more like duty than genuine care.

What even is authentic anymore?

I miss it. Deeply.

This process of writing has helped me get closer to what feels real and further away from what doesn’t. And that, to me, is priceless.

If you’re stuck in a job that pays well but drains you, maybe you don’t need to quit tomorrow. Maybe you start small. A side project. A blog. Something that feeds your soul while you figure out how to feed your stomach.

That’s exactly what I’m doing.

I have no idea where this leads. But I know how it makes me feel right now. Alive. Curious. Grounded.

And that matters.

I’m learning how to articulate thoughts I kept buried for years. I’m opening parts of myself to the world, not for validation, but for connection.

Doing this makes me happy. Truly happy.

And I’m never letting that spark die out again.

Here’s to choosing joy.
Here’s to starting again.
Here’s to day one.

— Raulito