Golden – Yearly Theme 2025

I’d love to say it came to me on the open road, somewhere in the outback. A dusty and remote spot that could be reached only after hours of patient travel.

But it came to me while seated at my desk. Looking at the calendar, to-do list, and notes about upcoming travel. “I’m going to have to do a lot of driving next year,” I thought to myself.

And then it hit me, my theme for 2025: Drive.

Except “drive” feels like such a clichéd productivity word. A LinkedIn word. A tech bro hack, a push-yourself-harder, hustle-and-grind word. The associations felt wrong. Even if the spirit was right.

This often happens. A word feels like the perfect fit for your yearly theme. Until it doesn’t.

A few weeks ago, I drove an EV from Melbourne to Adelaide. It was luxurious. A cocoon of stylish and futuristic design. I thought about words like “opulence” and “style”. I certainly want to elevate my life in 2025. I want to live better. But words that imply wealth and lavish spending aren’t right. You can be stylish without buying the most expensive things. I believe that to my core. And luxury is more about how you move through life than how closely your existence matches the idealised versions of reality we see online.

I found myself thinking about this while writing the conclusion of my 2024 review. I was reflecting on a paradox: there is so much to enjoy in the world, and yet so much of the world feels off-kilter. I needed a word to express the idea that life is still special, significant, or in some way surprisingly delightful.

I settled on golden.

On Being Golden

Golden was part of my youthful slang. It filled in for words like awesome, sweet, and wonderful. Something was golden if it stood out, shone, seemed to ask for a moment of awe and appreciation. Sunsets could be golden. But so could guitars. Or your girlfriend’s smile.

In ordinary speech, we often use golden to describe something beautiful. Someone’s light-coloured hair might be golden. Or a pristine beach could be lined with golden sand. We might portray an advantageous situation as a golden opportunity. Photographers talk about the golden hour, that time just after sunrise or just before sunset, when the light is softer and warmer and makes anything you photograph look better. A very good period in history might be called a golden era. People look forward to a happy retirement as their golden years. Somebody who sings well might have a golden voice. And the best audio and mixing engineers are said to have golden ears.

We even have the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” which has appeared in some form in almost every major religion since the time of the Ancient Egyptians.

Golden is not just good. It’s virtuous, pleasing, delightful, and enhances everything around it. Golden has an aura.

Golden In 2025

As I look back on previous yearly themes, what emerges repeatedly is the idea of enjoying the things I already have and pleasant moments in life. For 2025, I want to embrace the habit of identifying and naming the golden experiences as they happen.

For a while now, I’ve been at that stage where enjoying what I have is more important than acquiring more things. It’s not that I wouldn’t like a new guitar or camera. I’m still guilty of coveting new stuff. But I’m a long way past where I was as a teenager, when I could only dream of owning a camera or a guitar that could stay in tune.

I’m also starting to enjoy the season of life where most people’s happiness levels start to go up. It’s well documented that happiness is a U-shaped curve. We are happiest in our youth. Through our twenties and thirties, happiness dwindles. Life just seems to get harder. Then, as we get into our fifties, happiness rises again.

Sometimes this is explained away as the “golden years of retirement”. But it comes sooner than that. Perhaps because we reach a point where our values and boundaries are clearer – a point where we find contentment in what we have and we prioritise what fills our lives with joy. We say no to things that suck the pleasure out of life. The people around us better reflect what we feel is good and healthy in life. And living makes a bit more sense.

That all sounds golden to me.

The Leaden Realities

We get the phrase “eureka moment” from a time when the Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes was said to have leapt out of his bath and run naked through the streets yelling “Eureka!”, after his discovery of a solution for a problem given to him by his king.

The king wanted to know if his crown really was made of solid gold. While in the bath, Archimedes realised that if you put a gold crown in water, it would disperse a certain amount of water. The metals that would go into a fake crown would disperse less water.

But lead, like gold, is also heavy. That’s why ship’s anchors and diver’s weights are made of lead.

My priority for 2025 is to avoid the feeling that I’m sinking. I often felt overwhelmed in 2024. I wrote about the frequency with which I felt worried during the year. I’d prefer to bring less of that energy into 2025.

But the concerns that spurred on those worries can’t be willed away. Caring for my family, caring about my work, taking care of my health – these will feature just as prominently in the coming year. Not caring is not an option.

Each of those cares can be viewed in multiple ways. And if 2024 taught me anything, it’s that even amidst the hardship, there will still be moments that stand out in the memory.

The Golden Frame

Looking after my father could be seen as a leaden obligation. Something that just fell on my shoulders. Or I could look at it as a golden opportunity to understand him better. To have conversations we might never have had before. Or might never have again. To reach more deeply into my own soul in the way that is possible only when we are vulnerable and available to others through service.

Trying to further my own work could be viewed as a Sisyphean chore that will only sink my hopes again. Or I could remind myself that every time I try to push my work into the world, regardless of whether I succeed or not, I meet amazing people and grow in my understanding of creativity and life.

Gold or lead. There’s a choice in how to frame these challenges in the coming year.

This doesn’t guarantee things will work out. It’s not an insurance plan against disappointment or sadness. But I remember even when my mother passed, there were golden moments. The beauty of the garden outside her window on her final days. Our last, brief conversation. The shifting clouds as I walked along the beach the evening after she passed. Her solemn immortal beauty as she lay in her coffin. The brilliant sunshine and crystalline waters as I spread her ashes. All these, golden.

I’m apprehensive about the coming year. There’s so much I can’t predict or control. So many crises shaping our world.

But when I climb down to the level where I live my life, there is still a lot of scope for golden moments, golden things – and, hopefully, a chance this might be a golden season as well.

Looking Back On Previous Themes

My yearly theme for 2024 was Frequency. I was hoping to live a more harmonious life by finding the right patterns and cadences for things I did in life. In an odd year this theme helped me be more aware of what I was doing and when I was worrying rather than moving forward with life.

You can learn more about choosing your own yearly theme or read below for the themes I’ve used since 2108.

2024 – Frequency
2023 – Savour
2022 – Tensegrity
2021 – Imagination
2020 – Momentum
2019 – Conviction
2018 – Simple