Fall Forward…

By: Skylar Ribotsky

As we approach the final day of another year and look ahead to 2026, I find myself wanting to look backward—specifically, at everything 2025 taught me.

2025 was a big year for me personally. It’s the year I graduated from college. For a long time, it felt like this distant milestone—a moment when everything was supposed to make sense. Like somehow, by the time I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma, the rest of life would just click into place.

It didn’t.

What I’ve realized, looking back at both the months leading up to graduation and the months after, is that this year wasn’t about having things figured out at all. It was about learning. And while I generally think a lot of the performative reflection that comes with the New Year is silly—and I have no interest in offering resolutions I don’t believe in—I do think there’s value in taking stock of what a year actually gave you.

So instead of resolutions, here are some of the lessons 2025 taught me.

1. Happiness is a choice.
   We talk about happiness as if it’s a destination—something we’ll reach once we land the right job, make more money, or finally check the next box. But happiness isn’t something you arrive at; it’s something you decide. That next paycheck matters, and struggle is real, but if I’m being blunt: your life probably doesn’t suck—your mindset does.
2. Nothing stays the same forever.
   That applies to the good times and the bad. Enjoy the good a little more when it’s here, but don’t waste your energy wishing the hard moments away. Life doesn’t work like that, and neither does growth.
3. Forgiveness is necessary—especially when it feels impossible.
   Forgive people who will never apologize. Forgive actions you will never understand or accept. Forgive circumstances that never should have happened. And don’t forget to forgive yourself. Carrying resentment may feel justified, but it’s heavy—and it keeps you stuck.
4. Truth still matters.
   Now more than ever, facts matter. Truth matters. Even in a world that seems increasingly comfortable with distortion and denial, reality doesn’t disappear just because people don’t like it.
5. Evil must be called what it is.
   There is nothing tolerant about forcing people to accept evil. This summer, I came face to face with that reality when I visited the site of the Nova Music Festival in Israel—one of the places where unspeakable brutality occurred on October 7th. I had seen the videos. I had heard the testimony. But being there was different. The air felt heavy. What struck me most was the overwhelming sense that there had been nowhere to run—nowhere safe. It’s something that can’t be fully understood from seeing it on a screen.
6. True strength is found in choosing love after unimaginable loss.
   I thought I understood strength until I sat in a room on the two-year anniversary of October 7th, listening to former hostage Eli Sharabi speak. To survive 491 days in captivity, clinging to the hope of reuniting with his wife and daughters—only to learn they had been murdered on the very day he was taken—and then to still choose a life rooted in love rather than rage is a kind of strength I’m not sure I possess. But it’s a strength I will never forget.
7. Everything costs something—but quitting costs the most.
   I can’t count how many times I put off starting our podcast, Dad, Did We Just Break America?—whether out of fear, self-doubt, or the excuse that it all felt too complicated. Eventually, you have to stop negotiating with yourself and just start. If you want something badly enough, you’ll figure it out—but only if you get out of your own way.
8. Beer really is better in Israel.
   Some lessons are simple.
9. The West doesn’t understand the conflicts it loves to lecture about.
   I was in Israel during the twelve-day conflict with Iran, and I can say unequivocally: anyone who has spent the last two years demonizing Israel without understanding the region has no idea how the Middle East actually works—and I recommend everyone have to go and see the conflict before they lecture the rest of the world on it.
10. You can’t fix stupid.
    And you will absolutely lose your mind trying.
11. You don’t get to complain if you refused the chance to act.
    That’s why I volunteered for Andrew Cuomo. Protecting and salvaging New York City mattered more to me than waiting for a perfect candidate who was never going to appear. I wanted to earn the right to complain—whatever the outcome.
12. The world is bigger than you—act like it.
    Seek out moments that remind you of that fact. The warped sense of self-importance that dominates so much of my generation isn’t empowering—it’s embarrassing.

More than anything, 2025 reminded me of this: never let go of the dreams you had as a kid, before you were aware of judgment, expectations, or limits imposed by other people. You owe it to yourself to chase them.

And if you’re lucky, one day you’ll look back and realize that the year you thought you needed answers was really the year that taught you how to keep going without them.