2026 & Happiness in the Mundane
2026 & Happiness in the Mundane
A note on rest, growing inward, and letting life be enough.
This piece was written for Biuro, @_biuro on Instagram. I’m sharing it here as a way to open the year and the creation of this blog.
The kid I once was didn’t measure her days by outcomes.
She didn’t confuse growth with pressure. She knew when it was time to rest, when it was time to play, when enough was enough.
This past year has burned in quiet ways. It’s been repetitive, wearing.
In moments where I’ve felt hurt, frustrated, or exhausted, I’ve noticed something else alongside the discomfort: another layer loosening.
Like skin that once protected me, but no longer fits the shape of who I’m becoming.
As this nine-year cycle (2025) comes to a close, I feel the shedding clearly. Each layer that falls away reveals how much no longer fits - habits, coping mechanisms, borrowed urgency. This time, there hasn’t been anything ready to replace it. No distraction that works. No performance convincing enough to cover the discomfort. Pretending has become exhausting.
As I move closer to thirty, I’ve started to notice a quieter kind of honesty. The spiral no longer expanding outward, but pulling inward instead. Momentum giving way to stillness. I’ve realised how much I’ve relied on continual wins to feel that my life has direction or purpose.
How deeply I’ve absorbed the idea that happiness is something I must work towards - something that arrives later, once enough proof has been gathered. And yet, each time a milestone is reached, it immediately gives way to the next. The moment of arrival barely registers before attention shifts forward again, passing almost unnoticed.
So much of our time is shaped by systems that reward urgency. Productivity as virtue. Progress as visibility.
We’re taught to treat our lives like projects - always refining, optimising, moving towards the next milestone that will finally allow us to rest.
Somewhere along the way, the ordinary moments become easy to overlook.
For 2026 - for myself and for the people I love - I wish we find happiness in the mundane. Not as a consolation prize, but as a complete form of living. I wish for time to rest and enjoy where we are, without needing our sense of meaning to hinge on what we’re working towards next. I want to stop narrating my life from the outside, and return to inhabiting it from within.
I wish for us less striving and more participation.
Less anticipation of the next phase, and more permission to stay with what’s already here. I wish for growth that comes from showing up, returning, ritual, and presence rather than pressure.
And for my inner child: I promise you rest. I promise you play. I promise you won’t be rushed. You don’t have to grow up. You can just be here.
Love,
Lips x
Keywords:
Rest · Integration · Cycles · Inner Child · Arrival
Numerology Note:
This piece was written on 27.12.2025 at 16:16.
- 16:16 speaks to reflection, inner realignment, and the quiet dismantling of structures that no longer support who you’re becoming. It’s a number associated with humility, truth, and returning to what’s essential.
- 27 carries the energy of wisdom gained through lived experience - compassion shaped by cycles, not shortcuts.
- 2025 marks the completion of a nine-year cycle, a year of endings, integration, and release before renewal.
Together, the timing mirrors the message:
A return inward, a soft closing, and an invitation to let life be enough without proving it.
