A Life Rewired — The Final Post (A Cheerful, Rambling Curtain Call)

If 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that the universe has a dark and often twisted sense of humour. Every time we tried to do something sensible the world leaned in, winked wickedly and said, “I don’t think so”.

This was the year where the heatwave records were raised - again; where the global economy had a nervous breakdown; and where wars continue to kick off with the same predictability as a Christmas Monopoly full-scale domestic incident.

Thankfully, social media didn’t let us down. It became even more unbearable, which is exactly the sort of consistency you can set your watch by.

In other words: a perfectly normal year in the modern age.

It was also the year humanity proved, once again, that we are spectacular at worrying about the wrong things.

We worried about global conspiracies, yet we keep trusting the same buffoons who swore Brexit would be glorious — the sort of claim normally made by a man whose brain is rented out to village idiots for training purposes.

We worried about the doom of civilisation, then spent October arguing whether mince pies should be allowed on shelves before Halloween. (A debate, I might add, more vicious than most elections.)

And yet — in the middle of the drama, the weather tantrums, the political slapstick, and the endless scroll of “Breaking News” that rarely broke anything — life carried on. Humanity did what humanity always does: panicked, adapted, and put the kettle on.

And somewhere in there, A Life Rewired kept bumbling along — tapping out essays, stories, travel oddities, and the occasional philosophical detour that I swear made sense when I started typing.

This little corner of the internet became, unintentionally, a diary of wandering thoughts: pieces about travel, fitness, absurd conversations with strangers, cinematic views from windswept cliffs, and the deeply heroic act of trying to improve one’s life while regularly losing the battle with our own sanity.

I formed the basis for many of these posts perched in airports, others while trying to remember if I’d turned the oven off, and one or two after promising myself I’d “just jot down a quick idea” at midnight. (A lie I intend to continue telling myself for years.)

But the magic — the real magic — came from you.
Some of you wrote to say a blog got you through a rough day whilst others said a post made you laugh inappropriately in a meeting. And some of you simply read in silence, which is still the greatest compliment a writer can receive in a world where silence is in such short supply.

To every single person who reached out, shared a post, recommended it to a friend, or simply showed up to read my ramblings… thank you. You turned what could have been a one-man monologue into a small, kind, ridiculous conversation.

Now, as the year closes, so does this chapter. This will be the last full A Life Rewired post. Not because I’ve run out of words — if anything, I’m in danger of causing a national shortage — but because all things deserve an ending before they turn into a burden or a dusty, echoing hallway of old drafts and yes, I still have a handful of drafts that will now no longer see the light of day.

The website will stay alive for a little while longer. Think of it like a pub that’s stopped serving but hasn’t yet turned the lights off: you’re welcome to wander in, reminisce, and reread anything that once made you laugh, think, or sigh heavily at our collective questionable life choices. I won’t keep it forever though.

If these pieces have been entertaining and helpful in equal measure — or even entertaining despite my attempts to be helpful — then I consider the journey to have been a small triumph.

Why close now? A few reasons, none of them grand. The world has shifted; work and life pulled in different directions; frankly, I want to finish the writing project I’ve been pushing myself for the past three years. But mostly I want to leave while the thing still feels like it belongs to a living person rather than a maintenance contract. The internet is generous but insistent; closing A Life Rewired properly feels like a tidy act of courtesy to the readers and to the work itself.

So, what do I want you to take from all of this? Three tiny things. One: keep being curious. Curiosity is cheap and yields wonderful returns. Two: be kind to your future self — make small decisions now that future-you will thank you for. And three: laugh a lot; it’s hard to feel triumphant about a life that takes itself too seriously.

And so, here we are at the last section of the last blog.
A moment of stillness before the curtain drops.

Thank you for walking through 2025 with me.
Thank you for reading these inane ramblings and treating them like something worth your time.
Thank you for letting A Life Rewired be, for a little while, part of your world.

May you all enjoy a healthy and happy Christmas and New Year and that 2026 treats you all better than 2025 ever could.

And may you always find a reason — however small, however odd — to keep rewiring your life in the best possible direction.

With humour, gratitude, and a slightly emotional coffee in hand,
Barry — A Life Rewired