For 2024’s Year in Review post, I’d like to trial a new format. Usually I write these posts in the style of an essay, with the aim being to tell the story of that year. This time around, I’d like to tell the stories of the year, and divide the post into sections based on theme. That way, perhaps I can cover more ground. I’m not necessarily going to switch to this format permanently—I just want to try it and see how it reads. It might be the case that some years are better suited to singular narratives if their events can be unified around a common theme, while others might be more effectively told as a selection of concurrent stories.
As always, I write these posts with one eye on the future. My Year in Review posts are increasingly the most important posts I write on this blog, and taken together I see them as a lifelong project. That’s why I’ve given them their own tab in this website’s menu—I like having a page where I can look back and see this diary of my life that gets filled in once per year. Each year I write these posts, I think more about posterity, and that’s partly why I’m experimenting with the format this time around; perhaps covering more topics, more succinctly, can provide greater value for the future.
Goals & outcomes
My main goal for 2024 was to keep my job and get better at it. I’ve done a few different jobs down the years, and I was—and still am—determined to really plant down roots at this place and work there for a long time. I need security and consistency so that I can save money for a deposit. My goal is to build a career at this company, but I know from experience that you can’t take anything for granted. Even using the word “career” feels like tempting fate in this day and age. Obviously, there are things out of my control, but I figure I can give myself the best chance possible by trying to focus on what I can control. I passed my probation in January 2024, which was a good start to the year, and I’m still there at the time of writing, so this goal was a success. Throughout the year I gradually took on more responsibilities and became more versed in different types of tasks. I also took advantage of the generous self-development budget our company allocates its employees each year and enrolled in a Copywriting for Web & Email masterclass run by the IDM.
My secondary goal for the year was to write a novel, which I failed miserably. This is my goal every year, so it’s not necessarily unique to 2024. Maybe in 2025 it will happen…
My biggest challenges
The thing I struggled with most in 2024 was my ability to concentrate, which led to a lot of wasted time, inefficiency, and self-hatred. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve found it difficult to focus; my mind would always wander without my realizing it or I’d lapse into a paralyzing mind fog. But while it’s nothing new, it felt a lot more intense in 2024. I’m not sure why it would suddenly get worse.
It’s always been there, but usually I’d just put up with it and curse myself for being lazy. In 2024 however, it felt like it was front and center. It dominated my life in a way that it hadn’t before, and it became something that I actively wanted to combat, if such a thing were even possible. I’d say that when I look back on 2024, I’ll definitely think of this as being the root cause of most of my stress.
Reading
2024 was probably one of the worst years I can remember in terms of my reading. By that, I don’t mean it was bad because of the number of books I read—although that was certainly disappointing. It was bad because I completely fell out of love with reading. I struggled to make time for it, and when I did read, it was always a stressful experience. Regardless of whether I was enjoying the book or not, I’d be agitated, my mind would wander, and it would take me as long as 20 minutes to finish a single page of a standard paperback novel. Instead of feeling relaxed or immersed, reading always left me exhausted. And it would often lead to self-loathing, especially when I’d see other people breeze through books out in public, probably at an uninterrupted pace of a page a minute. Me reading three pages in an hour and hating myself afterward felt like a poor use of my time. As far as what I read, my favorite read of the year was Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie. I loved the characters and the plot was never dull, although I think I struggle with longer books. This one took me about six months to finish, and going forward I want to avoid situations where I’m stuck with any one book too long. No matter how good the book is, or how much I like it, it always ends up feeling like a chore.
Writing
2024 proved to be another piss-poor year for writing. The writer’s block I’ve felt since releasing my book in 2022 continued, and it was actually worse in 2024 than it had been in 2023. The worst moment for me was when I signed up for a writing contest (a prompt-based competition where you get about a week to come up with a short story) and failed to produce anything before the deadline, which is the first time that’s happened. I started to think I’d simply lost the ability to write at all, that I’d reached a point in my life where a part of myself that had always been there just fell out one day, like baby teeth. Another contest came around later in the year and I was quite nervous about signing up. I knew that if I failed to write a story this time then I was right—I couldn’t write anymore. Luckily, I was able to come up with something. It wasn’t great, and it didn’t win, but it felt like an important moment. It was a story about an affluent, middle-class man who hires a handyman that turns out to be his old high school bully. It’s the only creative thing I wrote last year, and it helped restore my self-confidence to some degree.
My social life
2024 was a good year from a social perspective, no doubt. It’s true that I get quite lonely between social occasions, but when I take stock of the facts I’m extremely lucky—I have a good number of close friends and I get to enjoy a range of activities with them. It can be quite challenging to get everyone together in London—everyone has their own busy lives, they have partners, they have other friends. We’re all strapped for cash from the cost of living in London. But we do a good job of seeing each other when we can and having fun—especially on birthdays. It would take too long to list everything, but standout memories include hitting up Swiftogeddon, Bounce ping pong bar, and that little arcade at the O2.
I also made some new friends in 2024!
- A kindhearted police officer and highly skilled ice skater, with an uncanny ability to draw the periodic table from memory and enough books logged in her Goodreads to shame a moderately sized library
- A delightfully entertaining prison counselor with a lightning bolt tattoo, an indomitable free spirit, and a talent for travel photography
- A bubbly English Lit grad with a love of Korean cinema, baking, and half-marathons that was hired to spearhead our brand partnerships at work
I became fast friends with all three of them and it’s interesting how meeting them has become something inextricably tied to my memory of 2024.
I also got closer to people at work. There were official work events like the summer party, awards evenings, the marketing festive lunch, and the Christmas party—but I also hung out with my colleagues more casually too, like the time a bunch of us went to a cool minigolf bar in central.
Music
I can’t really rate the year’s songs the way I do its films, as I don’t make any effort to keep up with music. Usually, I listen to the same old stuff I’ve always listened to, but every now and then I’ll pick up a new song through cultural osmosis. For what it’s worth, songs released in 2024 that I enjoyed include “Houdini” by Eminem, “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart” by Taylor Swift, and “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan.
Habits, routines, and rituals
- Going to the local café at 7am every weekend to read and write. As I said above, I didn’t do much creative writing in 2024, sadly—so most of the time I’d either be blogging or making notes.
- Going to the local Odeon with my roommate Robin and leveraging her NHS discount to catch the latest picture (usually something dark and disturbing) while sipping a Tango Iceblast (mixed flavors). Sometimes we’d go to a bar afterwards for a “debrief” and discuss the film we just watched. You can check out my ranking of the movies I saw in 2024 here.
- Making a batch of meals for the week in my slow cooker on Mondays. My favorite recipe from the year was this Creamy Crockpot White Chicken Chili (I make it without the green chiles and the cayenne pepper, obviously).
- Second-screen experiences. On evenings where I wasn’t busy I’d often play a video game while listening to a podcast or watching a documentary. Usually, I wouldn’t have the attention span to do either one on their own. Games I played in 2024 included Horizon: Forbidden West, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Black Myth Wukong, and Civilization VI. I’d only have to give them undivided attention at key moments, so paired them with The Rest Is Politics (for politics podcasts), Truly Criminal (for crime documentaries), The Ricky Gervais Show (for Karl), and Kings & Generals (for history documentaries).
- Hitting the gym on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Usually, I’d run on the treadmill until I couldn’t go any longer, then switch to a high-incline walk.
- Each month, our team at work (the Brand Team) would go out to a nearby restaurant for lunch. The company gives us a budget of £25 per person that we can use once a month, and we make sure never to waste it. There was one month we didn’t go, and we rolled the budget over so that the next month we could eat for £50 per person. We went to a fancy hotel called The Ivy, which was a fun experience.
New experiences
- I tried shuffle dancing for the first time, which was really fun but also quite challenging. Aside from being quite tiring, I’d frequently get my brain mixed up about which foot went where and when. Ultimately, I would have stuck with this, but I simply couldn’t afford it. Each class was £100 a session, and I just can’t swing that at the moment given the cost of living and my saving goals. But my plan is to continue it once I’m able. The instructor had me start out with the “Running Man”, and I made decent progress, but struggled when mixing in some other moves. I envied the way she seemed able to just float across the floor and dance without consciously thinking about what to do and when.
- I went to a book signing for the first time! Julia Armfield, the writer of Salt Slow and Our Wives Under the Sea, came to the Waterstones in Kingston to give a talk as part of the promotion of her new novel Private Rites. It was so cool to see her in person—she’s one of those people that’s very reflexively articulate. She always had really interesting and detailed answers to the questions put to her, be it from the host or the audience. I snagged a copy of her new book and, more importantly, got the chance to tell her to her face how much I loved Our Wives Under the Sea, which was a real pleasure.
- I went to Scotland for the first time in my life and tried haggis. It tasted nice enough, but I wouldn’t say I loved it. I much preferred Cullen skink, which I also tried for the first time—that was banging.
- I hosted a Christmas party and cooked for other people, neither of which I’d done before. My intention was to have everything in the oven before everyone arrived, but the fact I ended up behind schedule made it more memorable. Everyone helped out and it felt quite wholesome and cozy to have the kitchen full of people. Rae brought over a tray of brown butter and rosemary orzo, Lucia surprised me by bringing her signature tiramisu, and Emily saved me a lot of time by grating an entire block of extra mature cheddar. For my guests, I made stuffed mushrooms, pigs in blankets, and the hot crab dip my American roommates made for me back in the day. The whole afternoon ended up being one of my favorite memories of all time.
The world at large
A rundown of the year’s news stories would take way too long and be almost certainly better suited to its own post. But two events that stood out to me in 2024 were the US presidential election and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, both of which made me think about where they belonged as part of broader historical processes. It’s obviously really difficult to be aware of a historical moment while you’re in it, and often we get so caught up in the shock of something that we don’t see it as belonging to a much wider context.
When Trump won, it showed that he wasn’t just a blip, as though he were some kind of toxic rebound that America experimented with during a vulnerable phase. Although the margins were slim, he nonetheless won a decisive victory—taking all the swing states and the popular vote (which is very rare for a Republican candidate). We didn’t learn the lessons of 2016, or indeed of the Weimar Republic, and the slow-motion car crash of neoliberal economic policy that we’ve seen since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis makes campaigning so much easier for right-wing populists. It doesn’t matter that people are voting against their own interests—what matters, from an electoral standpoint, is that the likes of Trump, Reform, the AfD, et cetera make the disenfranchised feel seen. As much as the Republicans won, the Democrats lost—and the latter story is much more interesting and, I think, important. While it might be tempting to point the blame at individual figures—Biden, Macklemore, Elon Musk, Chappell Roan—I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t even think Kamala Harris was a bad candidate; the reason she lost, in my opinion, comes down to the Democrats’ overarching strategy. Not who they played, but how they played it. I think by focusing front and center on the working class, and presenting an positive, upbeat campaign based around making their lives easier (rather than a negative, unfocused campaign based on pointing out how awful Trump is) then they might have won over those crucial centrist voters in the rust belt. Like I said, I think Kamala was a good candidate and would have made a competent president, but her defeat shows that clear, consistent messaging matters a lot more than big financial donations and celebrity endorsements.
As for the fall of Assad, that one stood out to me because it shows both how interconnected the world is and how quickly things can change. I think all political systems—democracies or otherwise—are a lot more fragile than they appear. At the start of 2024, I don’t think anyone would have guessed that the Assad regime would be gone by the end. We were all watching the latest news from Gaza. We were, quite naturally, caught up in the moment, how shocking it was, and not thinking ten steps down the line. The conflict between Israel and Hamas brought in two key players in 2024—Hezbollah and Iran—and the IDF absolutely crushed them. And with Russia tied down in Ukraine, that meant that Assad’s three biggest allies were incapable of propping him up. I don’t think anyone realized just how reliant his regime was (particularly on Hezbollah for ground support and Russia for air control) until the rebels tested it and it fell apart like a house of cards. It definitely makes you think about the geopolitical domino effect of any given conflict, and the robustness of political institutions.
Politics
While I’m still broadly socialist, I’ve found that I’ve become increasingly utilitarian in my political philosophy over the past year. I think it’s down to a kind of exhaustion with the fact that we’re facing so many pressing issues that aren’t being treated with the seriousness or the urgency that they need. Everything—from economic inequality to climate change—seems to be getting worse, and there don’t seem to be any technocrats in power ready to roll up their sleeves and get down to the hard work of trying to mitigate it.
I care a lot less now about lofty principles and a lot more about practical solutions. It’s my worry that if we waste oxygen on culture wars, play party politics, and refuse to address the needs of everyday people with bold, radical solutions, then the rot of right-wing populism will continue to fester and in so doing erode our democracies and accelerate the world’s problems. Whenever I found myself thinking what I wanted from politicians last year, I felt this real appetite for a more utilitarian approach; the greatest good for the greatest number. Even if it means falling short of our lofty principles. I believe a lot more than I ever have that the ends justify the means, and that we should pursue whatever course is available that maximizes good and minimizes suffering.
Health & fitness
2024 was one of my best years for fitness in quite some time. I’ve always found it tough to stay active as an adult. When I look back on my teenage years, it flummoxes me how much physical exercise I got done—football training once a week, football matches on Sundays, taekwondo twice a week, P.E at school, football every lunch break, and football all summer long with my friends. It was the all-football economy, more or less. At the time I never thought of it as exercise, or something with a practical function. It was always something social or something for fun. A game. Whereas now, I think of physical activity in terms of personal fitness. It’s about losing weight, it’s about mental health, it’s about the fear of heart disease, diabetes, and other morbid fixations.
I decided, before 2024 began, to sign up for a gym membership and actually stick to it for a full calendar year for once. I’m proud to say that I succeeded! In 2024 I managed 178 visits to the gym, aiming for about 3-4 workouts per week. For the most part, I focused on running, since my goal was (and still is) to lose weight and become more energetic in my day-to-day life. But I also mixed in a good amount of rowing and some occasional weightlifting. While I was successful in the sense that I was able to commit to exercising regularly over the course of an entire year, I’d say my progress plateaued. A couple of people have said I look better, but those people are my parents, so it’s hard to trust their opinion. I’m not as trim as I want to be, but I know the reason is likely less to do with my running habit and more to do with the fact I don’t pair it with a super healthy diet. Which is not to say that I have an unhealthy diet—I eat loads of fruit in fact—but I can’t stay away from ice cream. It’s hardwired into me to treat myself.
Theatre
We’re so back, baby. I saw four plays in 2024, which is the most I’ve seen in a calendar year since before the pandemic. All of them were good, albeit for different reasons and to different degrees:
222: A Ghost Story – thriller starring Stacey Dooley, in which two couples debate the presence of a ghost in the house during a dinner party. Very much my kinda play, being set over the course of a single night, in a fixed location, with a small cast of characters. The countdown to 2:22am was really clever as a dramatic device, and it was chilling but with just the right amount of jump scares.
The Grapes of Wrath – stage adaptation of the Steinbeck novel of the same name, starring Cherry Jones. Overall I think this was my favorite play of the year—really clever use of stagecraft, beautiful design, and it captured the anti-capitalist source material really well.
Coriolanus – Shakespeare tragedy starring David Oleyowo about a disgraced Roman general who compares the idea of the masses having power over the elites to “crows pecking the eagles”. Good, but not great.
The Other Place – New play written and directed by Alexander Zeldin (who did The Confessions, which I saw last year!), starring Emma d’Arcy, Alison Oliver, and Tobias Menzies. A really well-written (and really dark) modern twist on Greek tragedy, in which two sisters reunite on the anniversary of their father’s death.
Best moment of the year
My happiest memory from 2024 was going to Edinburgh to see Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour, no doubt. It really felt like I was witnessing something truly historic, and I know that it will always be the first thing I think of when I look back on 2024. The whole trip was a blast—from exploring the labyrinthine gothic streets and eating our weight in fresh seafood to our impromptu photoshoot atop Carlton Hill and ascending the Salisbury Crags. But if I were to pick a specific instant, I’d say singing “All Too Well” alongside Taylor, Robin, and 73,000 zealous Swifties was the moment my year peaked. I never got that high again.
If you’re interested in a detailed account of my trip to Edinburgh to see Taylor, you can read all about it here.
Conclusion
I’d say that externally, 2024 was a good year. It can’t be denied that, compared to all the years that came before it, my circumstances were the best they’d ever been. Things were so pleasingly consistent (consistency being a virtue I prize more and more as I get older). The fact that I maintained a good, well-paying job, coupled with the fact that there were no issues with the house, meant that 2024 saw me have more control over my life than ever before. That meant I felt a greater sense of freedom and independence. I could do things like travel to Edinburgh for a Taylor Swift concert, go to the theatre, and generally take advantage of living in London, because I had that secure, consistent lifestyle.
Internally, however, I struggled a lot in 2024. And I think it ties into that greater sense of freedom I felt from holding down my job, from the absence of issues requiring my attention, and the fact that my friends were all still in London. I had this incredible set of circumstances (in the context of my personal history that is), and I was worried that I was wasting it. Something just felt hopelessly missing. Something important. I wasn’t happy with myself. In fact, 2024 might have been the most negative I’ve felt toward myself in a long time. I’m not sure how to fix it exactly, but I’m convinced that if I was using my time more productively—that if I could just be more energetic and more inspired—then that would make a big difference.
There were obviously some great memories in 2024, but a lot of personal malaise in between. Going forward I’d like to work on trying to be happy between these social occasions with my London friends, to find some kind of inner happiness that isn’t reliant on other people. There were so many times in 2024 where I thought to myself: I’m so fucking boring. I felt like I was just living to survive; work-eat-sleep-repeat. I wanted something deeper to motivate me to get out of bed in the morning. I told my GP how I was feeling, and she doubled the dosage of my antidepressants, but I’m not sure it really had much of an effect. I think going forward into 2025, it’s really going to come down to my own willpower as far as making the most of my life outside of work and hopefully finding some way to love myself. The good thing is, I’m still happy with my circumstances and actively trying to get better at motivating myself to do more with my free time. 2024 has set me up well to achieve this goal of being more creative and productive, and on balance I would say it was a reasonably good year.
TumbleweedWrites 