Hey my friend ☕️

I've been calling my life 'burnt toast' for two years now. But 2025 wasn't burnt toast.

It was one of those years where the toaster still works. The setting is fine…

But the whole kitchen is on fire.

New job. New city. Family uprooted. And then grief arrived and broke down whatever sense of normal we had built.

It was one of those weeks at work where everything was urgent. A backlog of decisions. Escalations. Meetings stacked on meetings. Teams notifications and @mentions flashing like dashboard warning lights. People needing answers in five minutes for problems that deserved five hours.

Then my phone rang. My wife’s aunt. She was crying so hard I could barely make out the words.

“Vaugan… uncle Maga passed away.”

Her brother.

In that second, the noise went quiet. Not solved. Just… irrelevant.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, numb.

“I can’t reach Dhivanee,” she sobbed.

“I’ll call her”, was all I could manage, a lump in my throat.

I called my wife. No answer. I called again. Still nothing. My stomach dropped. Not panic. Just the cold absence of control.

I remember looking at my calendar and realizing none of it mattered anymore.

I closed the laptop.
Started searching flights.
I knew I’d pay for it at work later. I also knew I couldn’t not go.

And that was the moment 2025 became very clear to me: You can have a thousand priorities. Life only needs one.

Between June and August, we uprooted our whole family and moved from Johannesburg to Cape Town for my new role. New school. New routines. New rhythms. Support structures gone overnight.

Just as we started adjusting, my father-in-law passed away. I Lost My Biggest Fan.

Four trips to Durban between October and December. A routine that became airports and car hire. A body that became tired.

Nothing collapsed. But nothing stayed where it was either.

Looking back at my last few Wheel of Life check-ins, I can see what I was really doing. I wasn’t tracking balance. I was tracking something subtler:

How much control do I actually have in this season?

Some years respond to optimization. You tweak habits, fix routines, tighten priorities. And some years don’t.

Some years are load-bearing.

You are not building. You are carrying. If you treat a load-bearing year like a growth year, you’ll think you’re failing. Often, you’re not failing. You’re just… full.

This year didn’t reward control. It rewarded carrying.

Health took the bill this time around. I was already supposed to prioritize Health in 2025 based on my previous wheel of life. That didn’t happen. Nothing dramatic broke. But stress stayed high for long stretches. Sleep became inconsistent. Energy levels were patchy. Training and fitness became “later.” Recovery became something I talked about more than I practiced. The dashboard warning lights were on: Health doesn’t fail loudly. It erodes quietly.

Work had teeth this year. The role is big. The expectations are real. The learning curve is steep, and when you relocate mid-year, you don’t get a gentle runway. There were weeks I felt sharp and useful. And there were weeks I felt behind, reactive, and unsure of myself. Work was meaningful, enjoyable and stretching… but at times, it bit back. I made some mistakes that cost me trust. Trust I’ll have to earn back.

A family doesn't need a perfect year. It needs a shared one. Relocation tests everything. Grief tests everything. Parenting while tired tests everything. We didn’t get it perfect. But we stayed connected. We protected time together where we could. We showed up for each other through the move and through loss.

The relocation tax: Social circle. Cape Town is beautiful, but community doesn’t arrive with the scenery. We left our tribe behind. The people who made life feel easy because they were already woven into it. Many friends and family have reached out here in CPT - maybe it’s time for a tax rebate?

That dreadful phone call taught me how fast priorities can become irrelevant.

For 2026, that priority is simple. Health.

It’s not that the other domains don't matter. They do. But I finally understand something I've been slow to learn: I can't carry anything if I can't carry myself first.

When health erodes, everything else becomes harder. Work gets reactive. Parenting gets short-tempered. Recovery doesn't happen because there's nothing left to recover with. The dashboard warning lights aren't warnings anymore. They're a breakdown waiting to happen.

So here's the commitment: minor home gym setup, regular cardio to keep the heart pumping, 10,000 steps a day, and stretching with some yoga. Low-friction consistency. Just show up every day for my body.

No heroic efforts.
No transformation promises.
Just the daily practice of rebuilding the foundation.

Career still matters of course. It gets order before acceleration. Clearer priorities, stronger rhythm, less chaos. Family still matters. We'll explore Cape Town, build rituals, integrate school events, create memories. Community still matters. Because belonging is built, not found.

But all of that happens better when I'm not running on fumes.

If 2025 felt heavy for you too, this might help:

You didn’t fail.
You carried.

Some years aren’t meant to show growth.
They’re meant to show resilience.

The question isn’t how to fix everything at once.
It’s what, if strengthened quietly, makes the rest less brittle.

Until next week, friend☕
Vaugan