This Christmas, I’m Unwrapping Spotify: Are We Too Self-Analytical?

In 2025, I listened to 90,073 minutes of music, was in the top 0.04% of ‘global fans’ for my top artist, and had a ‘listening age’ of 87. Just like every other person, Spotify Wrapped is something I start looking forward to every December. And, like clockwork, I watched the black and white graphics get lifted from Spotify to Canva by other companies to summarise their own year. The New Yorker has a section called ‘2025 in Review’, where the top 10-15 albums, tv shows, books etc. of the year are discussed. Vanity Fair follows in the same suit. Of course, with the end of a calendar year, wanting to evaluate or look back on the last twelve months is natural. But, while it makes sense to quantify achievements in big companies like these, I was struck by how this ‘EOY targets’ mentality has bled into our personal lives under the guise of ‘New Years Resolutions’. 

This tradition is long backdated, preexisting Caesar changing the calendar to start in ‘January’. Even this choice was rooted in evaluation and progress, with the month being named after ‘Janus’, a Roman God with two faces: one looks back to the past, and the other to the future. However, with our world barreling down the path of late-stage capitalism, I can’t help but start to see the typical resolutions, (e.g. workout 4-5 times a week, get in the 10k steps a day) as anything less than exhausting. Self-improvement should absolutely be on our minds, but are we pushing ourselves too far into the realm of hyperproductivity? Progressing from goal to goal is the road we are expected to take. We keep marching onwards adamant that it leads to success – be it professional, personal or economic stability. But somewhere along the way, the constant compulsion to do more, achieve more, be more has led to burnout. 

Every night during termtime, I section my next morning into 15-30 minute slots before setting the alarm: 15 minutes to wake up and brush my teeth. 30 to make breakfast. 15 to eat it. 30 shower. 15 as buffer. Leave. Every morning, I wake up and have immediately pitted myself against the clock to get out at the right time. Oversleeping by 10 minutes means I start the day on a backfoot. Although I am aware of the toxicity, it is also futile to complain about having a morning routine, so I continue. Throughout the day, we are always pushing ourselves in some way or another to achieve, to produce and feel satisfied by the end. The comfort lies in the long-term, knowing that hard work always pays off. However, at times, this feels like walking a tightrope – ahead of you lies a bright future, but one glance down and you could fall into the grey, looming labour-machine that’s stood with its arms wide open. There’s just one cog missing in it, and it’s you.

If we are experiencing this (albeit overly nihilistic) depiction of burnout in our academic lives, why do we insist on continuing the ‘grind culture’ at home, too? Evaluating ourselves like data on a chart every December and using SMART target resolutions to boost efficiency in January doesn’t feel like the right balance here. The solution isn’t to reject work entirely, or refuse to better ourselves at all. It lies somewhere in between. In our personal lives, if it isn’t measuring our achievements via statistics, it’s understanding ourselves via aesthetics. With the infiltration of terms like ‘moon/star girl’ or ‘corporate baddie’ or ‘insert literally any word -core’ into the mainstream, the desperation to categorise ourselves into boxes has become palpable. As these terms get more and more abstract (I mean, what even is a ‘listening age’? 4 out of 5 of my top artists were ‘pop girlies’), the scramble to align ourselves with an aesthetic or ‘achieve’ it becomes evident. I would be lying if I said I have never considered donning a completely new persona every year as a reset myself. On the one hand, this seems to be a means to understand ourselves better, or ‘belong’, whatever that means. On the other hand, these boxes can also act as ideals to measure ourselves up against, which leads me right back to the conundrum of endless progress.

With this in mind, I’d like to share some ideas for implementing ‘rest as resistance’. Rather than find concrete, and at times superficial, ways to improve myself this January, I want to try to live slower and spontaneously where I can. Who knows, maybe this will be the roundabout route to a ‘bright future’: 

• If you can, have mornings where you don’t set an alarm. Occasionally, if I have no commitments during the day, I will even avoid checking the time when I wake up. It feels oddly liberating to be completely unaware of time. 
• On a similar theme, time doesn’t always have to be ‘passed’ or ‘wasted’. Practise sitting with it by doing ‘nothing’. 
• If you do choose to make New Years Resolutions, include some that resemble a bucket list more than a checklist. For example, ‘picnic in Hampstead Heath’ over ‘do the 75 Hard Challenge’. The end-product of 2026 doesn’t need to be a new, upgraded version of yourself, just one with more memories.
• Or, learn something utterly useless, purely because you can. Party tricks serve one purpose and it’s to have fun. 
• Try to do one thing at a time. You don’t always need to fit in another quick chore while you wait for the tea to be ready – a watched pot never boils but it will spill over if you’ve turned away to do the dishes.

• burnout
• mental health
• New Year
• resolutions
• rest
• self-improvement
• Spotify Wrapped
• wellness