This is the Year You Transform Your Life (Or Else)

I’m Umair Haque, and this is The Issue: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported publication. Our job is to give you the freshest, deepest, no-holds-barred insight about the issues that matter most.

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Hi! How’s everyone? Welcome back old friends, welcome new ones, and welcome to 2025.

This is the time of year when I’d normally issue a list of predictions. I don’t think I’ll do that from now on. What would be, after all, the point?

Those of you who are intelligent and thoughtful enough to know what happens next already know. Those who are foolish enough to continue living in self-deceit…nothing can change their minds, except learning the hard way.

If you really want a list from me, I’ll do a quick one, for old time’s sake.

—Economic stagnation and depression

—Democratic collapse

—Climate mega-scale impacts

—The implosion of confidence and trust in institutions and the future

—The march to war

These are of course the great macro trends shaping our world, and they will continue to intensify. Because we have made all the ancient mistakes, that lead to times like these.

But none of those are really my message. Like I said, unless you’re a fool, you know exactly what’s on the cards now.

The message of now is about regret.

Shortly, people are going to regret making the very, very bad choices they are making now. Some already do, like those who wanted a lower cost of living but chose closed economies and oligarchs, LOL.

I don’t want you to be among those people.

The regret that is coming their way is going to be not just swift, hard, and deep, but life-crushing and soul-destroying. Many are not going to have nothing left. Many will find every aspect of their lives absolutely ravaged by the foolish choices they’ve made. 

Will they learn then, you might wonder?

The answer to that question is: who cares?

By then, it’ll be too late. For them, and for all of us, frankly.

So think of all that as an anti-prediction, as in: who cares?

Which leads me to my point. 

The Transformation Principle

This is the year you transform your life. Before it’s too late.

I don’t mean to phrase that as an ultimatum or a threat. It sounds ugly that way. I don’t want you to feel that pressure, because we already, most of us, feel pretty bad these days, bruised, worried, anxious, maybe even panicked.

But the facts are these. 

You know what’s on the cards. Me “predicting” it more, LOL, would be an exercise in stupidity, because you’ve seen the old pattern that’s sort of wrecked the world in just that example. Those that don’t want to believe don’t, they get fucked, and then they lash out in despair and rage, rinse and repeat. 

I’m tired of trying to help these idiots, to be honest, and go ahead and chuckle, because I know you are too.

Which leaves us with this.

You know what’s on the cards, and now you have to transform your life.

You have to transform your life.

We’re shortly going to discuss just how, but first I want to explain what I’ll call the Transformation Principle. 

The world is undergoing now a series of brutal, idiotic, and severe transformations. Everything that we thought as the future once is now dying. That’s true from global trade to democracy to institutions to social norms and on and on.

We’ve talked a lot about renegotiating your relationship with a world like this. Not being a passive victim of it, a sort of bewildered spectator of it, or worse, an active participant in this dance of self-destruction. But what does that mean? How do you practice it?

For every negative transformation there is in the world, you must make a positive one in your life. Or at least try to.

The game now is about outracing these different kinds of transformations. Counterbalancing negative with positive. If you can do it successfully, and emerge in the black, so to speak, then congratulations, you won’t have Sunk With the Ship. 

Most people right now fall into the three categories above. Passive victims, spectators, or active accomplices, in precisely the destruction of their own lives and future, not to mention economies, societies, etcetera, blah blah. Don’t be in any of these categories.

And the way that you do that is by employing the Transformation Principle. You don’t have to sort of keep a ledger about it, and tally it one-to-one. But you should sort of use it as a heuristic, a way to think about, structure, construct, orient, yourself, your loved ones, and your life.

For every negative transformation the world undergoes, you must make at least one positive one.

The Transformation Principle in Practice

So what does that…still mean? It’s still pretty abstract. But like I often say, don’t overthink it.

None of this is an intellectual game. We’re not sitting in a grad-school seminar room trying to win a debate, like pundits appear to think they’re doing. We are trying to survive an age like this, and still live rich and meaningful lives. This is about your life.

So. Negative and positive transformation. There are those who will overthink it. Plenty of people love doing that, and it only makes them more foolish.

Negative transformations are exactly what you think they are, what your gut, your moral soul, your conscience, and even your mind, all know they are. Hate? Spite? Brutality? Greed? Not learning the lessons of history? The drive to dominate and aggress and conquer? Of course those are all negative transformations. Where exactly have they ever led, that’s positive?

So don’t kid yourself, and don’t play the dumb game that our culture wants you to, which is to “debate” yourself, and that way, trick yourself into giving up the most powerful thing you have, which is your inner knowledge, the compass that’s always guiding you. How the hell else do you get off a Sinking Ship, if not by heeding it?

So what are positive transformations?

What you should “do” now?

Nobody Knows What to Do Now, So Don’t Beat Yourself Up About It

Here’s a funny and brutal truth. 

Nobody know what to do now.

Nobody.

MAGA won the election, and it’s currently having a civil war, over an issue as simple (to it) as immigration for tech jobs.

It doesn’t know what to do. The Dems don’t know what to do. Our leaders don’t know what to do. Our institutions don’t know what to do, go ahead and look at how many CEOs are getting fired for sleepwalking into disaster.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, knows what to do now.

There’s a reason for that, and a consequence of that.

The reason is that we’ve put the angriest and most foolish people in charge of things, and they’ve led us to serial disaster after disaster. And now things are so broken, so ruined, so hopeless, that nobody even knows where to begin to fix a goddamned thing.

This is the problem of paradigm collapse.

When old paradigms shatter, entire worlds do too.

Does it feel like we’re out of ideas? It should, because you only start repeating history’s mistakes, as worlds, institutions, or even just people, when you are. That’s what paradigm collapse means in practical terms.

In even starker terms, it means: nobody knows what to do now.

I include myself in that, by the way. There was a time, maybe five years ago, a decade ago, when you could have come to me, and said, hey, how do we fix our economies, and I would have told you. But now? The problems are too severe, too manifold, and too grave. There are no real system level solutions left.

That’s not a pronouncement of doom, it just means that we have to create them. In other words, we need to pioneer new paradigms now.

And that brings me back to you.

Nobody knows what to do, because the old paradigms have failed.

They’ve failed at macro levels, economics, politics, democracy, and so on.

But they’ve also failed at micro levels, which is “how to live your life.”

Nobody knows, nobody has the faintest clue, how to live their lives anymore. I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal, one in a whole genre now, about millennials, who are fast approaching middle age, still living like they’re trapped in adolescence, because of course, they’ve borne the brunt of collapse. 

The old ways are done. 

And nobody knows how to live their life anymore.

Anybody that tells you they do is lying to you. Out of vanity, spite, or hubris. That path leads down a dark road. Pretty soon, you start telling everyone else how to live their life, as a kind of reaction against the fact that yours has gone haywire, and that way lies authoritarianism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism.

So anybody that says to you, hey, I know how to live my life! Right now? They’re lying to you, but more crucially, you should react with a kind of pity, because they’re lying to themselves.

So how do we solve this problem?

The Art of Transformation, or Not Fighting What You Already Know You Have to Do Now

By going back to basics.

Nobody knows how to live in this world anymore. I certainly don’t. I lament and grieve over it every day.

But on another level, there’s a truer truth. You already know what to do.

Your gut’s shouting it to you every day, over and over again. 

You’re kidding yourself, and me, and the world, if you tell me that isn’t the case. And remember where self-deceit leads? What it turns you into? That’s right, a fool.

Here are some of the many things your gut’s been saying to you over the last year, maybe few years.

—It’s time to move to that place

—It’s time to start that business

—It’s time to switch careers

—It’s time to start a new chapter in your professional life

—It’s time to give up on this person

—It’s time to stop reading this kind of nonsense

—It’s time to invest more in this, and spend less on that

—It’s time to get that degree or join that program 

—It’s time to stop taking those people for granted, and stop wasting energy on these

See what I mean?

When I put it that way, I’d bet there’s a very, very long list of “things to do” that most of us are…ignoring.

Fighting.

And why are we doing that? If our gut, our unconscious—which is wiser, remember, than our minds, more synthetic, faster, deeper—is shouting this, all this, at us, why are we fighting it?

It’s not just that “transformation is hard,” or the usual story we’re given.

It’s that unconsciously, we know if that we begin to make these changes? If we start to let go? We are also acknowledging that the old ways have failed. That life as we used to know it isn’t coming back. Or life as we expected it to unfold won’t.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow.

It bears the weight of immense grief. Of shattered expectations. Ravaged dreams. Of hopes that will never come true.

But we have to make this choice. We have to reach this place.

Because to embrace new possibilities, we have to let old ones go, too.

And when old possibilities are already frayed, destroyed, dead, then we must prune. We must sort of cut them out of our lives. Instead of trying to hold onto dead roots, clinging to them, for dear life, wishing, bitterly weeping, lamenting, if only this could have been. If only this could still be.

This takes immense courage. Really, deep, profound courage. It is one of life’s greatest and toughest decision. To be able to say: I am going to listen to myself. In these elemental ways.

We’re almost sort of taught never to do it, aren’t we? We’re taught to listen to pundits, to talking heads, to celebrities, now even to demagogues, doesn’t matter, the point is: anyone but ourselves. I don’t mean that in a naive way, obeying our worst impulses. But I do mean it in the sense of hearing our inner voice, the whispers of what our gut, our unconscious, is pleading with us to do, right now.

So.

This is the Year You Begin to Transform, Or…Else

Make this list of things to do. 

Of course, if you want to book a session with me, and work on it together, we can do that, just email me, but that’s not the point. The point is that you start doing it.

And not in the minor-league sense of self-help, because that isn’t really what we’re talking about—temporary, fleeting changes, to give you small-scale relief. We are talking about the polar opposite: permanent, lasting transformations.

So. For every negative transformation that happens in the world, you must make at least one positive one.

It can be anything from the sort of list of themes I’ve given you. Careers. Education. Setting boundaries. Redefining relationships. Business. The point is that you must begin making these transformations now.

You see, in stable times? It was OK to sort of let these things be unrealized dreams. Things that we’d grow wistful about, and maybe laugh over at the bar with our friends one day. Do you remember when I wanted to…?! A warm glow would settle over us. Because life was going to be OK, even if we didn’t.

But now things are very different. If we don’t make positive transformations in a world where negative ones are intensifying, we will be overwhelmed. We will end up in the panic-despair-bewilderment spiral so many millions are in. And that way, we will end up Sinking With the Ship.

If we don’t counterbalance negative transformations at the macro scale with positive ones in our own lives, what chances do we have at living rich, prosperous, meaningful ones? Very, very slender ones, if any chances at all.

So this is the year you have to get serious about transformation. Don’t waste a day. A second. A moment. This is about your life, and I don’t want you to be among the millions who are going to say, holding their heads in their hands, surveying the wreckage of the futures they themselves destroyed: My God, how I regret it all.

Lots of love,

Umair (and Snowy!)

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