As 2025 draws to a close, a quarter of a century, I felt an almost physical need to put a few words of reflection on paper, a kind of personal epilogue tied to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned over these twelve dense months. Because, you see, even without diving into the details, this year has been simultaneously the most fascinating, the most intense, and, against all odds, the most fun of my life. I’ve crossed extremes upon extremes, as if my life had been walking a fine line between chaos and wonder, between plunging falls and luminous recoveries.
I began the year working independently, driven by a thousand challenges that could have broken me, but instead shaped me. I end it in a vast, almost colossal company that, in just a few months, has taught me more than I could have learned alone in years, surrounding me with incredible people. I started the year in a relationship considered by everyone, even by myself, longstanding, only to have it end suddenly, like a door slammed by the wind. Yet in its emptiness, so many new people came into my life, so many social circles opened almost magically, along with experiences, passion, attention, and unexpected loving affection, that I realized I should have gone single much, much earlier. I began painting again, and oh, how much I painted! Brushstrokes like breaths, colors like confessions, capturing moments no words could ever truly describe. I traveled, sought adventure, collected moments like precious pearls, threading them one by one into a necklace far too short to hold them all. I watched tiny birds scuttle with the innocence of those unaware they are symbols of peace. I loved summer sunsets in good company, seemingly painted just for us. I explored places forgotten by God, flirted abroad with girls I’ll never see again, and that was okay. I gathered stories, surreal and vivid, enough to fill a two-hour film, and probably still not reach June.
I started the year suffocating under anxiety about who I might become, and I end it discovering, with almost disarming clarity, who I am.
And I lived. God, did I live. I felt alive like never before. It was an incredible year: highs and lows, storms and calm, but above all, I can say, without hesitation, it has been the best year of my life so far.
The most important lesson I’ve learned is astonishingly simple, almost cruel in its truth: it doesn’t matter. Truly. Everything that seems vital, indispensable, or defining for who we are… eventually evaporates. We all die alone and poor, stripped of embellishments, denied the superfluous we cling to as if it could save us. So why not have fun? Why not squeeze every second with the ferocity of someone who knows eternity is not guaranteed? Why live holding your breath, as if someone is silently judging you from an invisible balcony?
And let me be clear: I’m not talking about reckless hedonism, the blind whirlpool that consumes and empties you. No. I’m talking about the rare, almost revolutionary ability to find joy in everything, even in the smallest, seemingly insignificant details. I’m talking about the quiet magic of a morning commute, when the city awakens and, for a moment, you feel part of a vast, living machine. I’m talking about a starry sky, shyly revealed only to those who still have the strength to look up after a heavy day. I’m talking about a coffee offered without reason, a tiny gesture that somehow realigns you with the world. I’m talking about the fleeting beauty of a colleague passing by, making everything else seem lighter for a moment. I’m talking about the sweetness in routine, the small acts we often overlook: washing dishes while your mind drifts, filling up the tank with the music blaring and windows open, tidying the house while rain falls outside. Tiny rituals that don’t change your life, but keep it together. And yes, I’m also talking about madness: the impulsive kind, the sudden ideas that make you drive four hundred kilometers in half a day just out of boredom, just to see a piece of the world differently, just to remind yourself that you can. That you are free. That you are alive.
All of this, the grand and the tiny, the everyday and the wild, only matters if you stop weighing it down with the fear of mistakes, the anxiety of appearances, the obsession with controlling what, by its very nature, cannot be controlled.
The rest?
It doesn’t matter.
And it never will.
Because life is a game: the winner is the one who had the most fun. Not the one with the easiest path, not the one who collected the most medals, but the one who danced among the ruins with a crooked smile, who turned chaos into a stage and performed without fear of being off-key. That is the only way to truly enjoy life, to savor every single moment: stop caring about the superfluous. Stop kneeling before what doesn’t deserve your time or your peace. It doesn’t matter. Let go. Let go of everything that weighs you down like a soaked cloak in a storm.
Why obsess over who viewed your stories on Instagram, like a loyal dog waiting for a signal that will never come? Why track who unfollowed you, as if a thumb gesture could define your worth? Why care if a night out didn’t go as planned, if someone didn’t call, if a date dissolved like morning mist? How many nights have you lost over a message left on “seen” that, in hindsight, wouldn’t have changed a thing?
Stop overthinking. Stop letting fear of uncertainty control you. What are you afraid of, the judgment of others? Nobody cares: we’re all so frozen by uncertainty and trivialities that we barely notice anyone else.
Why let a job rejection wound you, when there are paths you haven’t even imagined, doors that open when you stop knocking, opportunities that appear only to those who keep walking instead of staring at a closed handle? Why let a “no” dig into you when life is full of detours that lead to the same view, or even a better one?
And why let the absence of someone who chose to leave your world haunt you? If they left, it was because their lesson was complete: a teaching delivered with the relentless punctuality of a speeding train, stopping briefly, then moving on, leaving you on the platform with a slightly heavier suitcase but a wiser heart.
And, honestly, how many times have you tormented yourself over even smaller, sillier things? A lightly said comment you took as judgment, a night when you weren’t the center of attention, a photo gone wrong, a misunderstood remark, a missing like? How often have you traded your peace for a crumb of approval no one was obligated to give?
And so yes, truly, truly: it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t.
Because what matters remains, and what doesn’t falls away like dust shaken from a cloak after battle. Life doesn’t wait, it doesn’t slow, it doesn’t apologize. It sweeps us forward like a raging river, and we can cling to passing branches, or open our hands and let ourselves be carried, laughing like children who haven’t yet learned fear.
Maybe that’s the secret: to live strongly enough not to fear loss, and lightly enough not to be broken by change.
Because at the end of the game, when the theater lights go out and the audience has gone home, the only question that will truly matter is: did you have fun? Did you live? Did you laugh while the world burned? Did you choose yourself even when it would have been easier to choose regret?
The rest… doesn’t matter. And never, truly never, will.
This article was originally written in Italian. If you want to read the original: Non preoccupartene.