What Matters

Happy New Year’s Eve! Next week I’m going to have predictions for ’26, but right now it’s a bit of reflection on the year that was.

2025 was… a year. For me, it was very good. Everyone stayed healthy. We launched Noble Mobile, which has been a joy. It’s great building something that both saves people money and gets them off their screens a bit (17% reduction in screen time for early users!). Thousands of people have come to Offline parties, which have taken on a life of their own. I finished a book I’m excited to have out. The year has been productive and generative.

But out there, it seemed like a gross year. Troubling headlines abounded. People feel unsettled. The AI boom has most people shaking their heads about the future. The vibes were bad.

I asked people on social media, “How was 2025 for you?” 30% said “Okay” and 23% answered “Poor / bad / terrible.” That seems representative.

How do we measure how things are going? A recent Wall Street Journal poll gauged what Americans agreed were very important. The results were jarring; Americans have gotten markedly less interested in patriotism, religion, having children, or community involvement.

You know the only thing that is going up that people agree is ‘very important to them’? Money.

Yikes. But in a way it’s unsurprising.

What makes a society more likely to focus on money? In my view, it’s a mindset of scarcity, where you feel like if you don’t have a certain amount of money, you can’t afford a good life.

Look, I get it. These things are real. I’ve felt for years that the easiest, most straightforward way to improve people’s lives at scale is to put money into their hands. And if someone asks you ‘how was your year?’, the first thing you might think about is your bank account or your kitchen table. You doing better financially? Probably been a good year. You struggling financially? Probably a tough one.

That said, I’ve always felt the bottom line was about more than that. I made a number of choices in my younger years that were financially unwise. I wanted to be a good person, whatever that meant, and do interesting, impactful work, whatever that meant. If you ask me what the best thing I could do for a person is, it would be to connect them with a role or a great opportunity that brings out the best in them and allows them to grow. That is the stuff of magic.

Social media has substituted a different form of currency for a lot of people; if you’re a teenager at home, what’s the most valuable type of affirmation you can receive? Likes on a post or picture you’ve put up by your peers. It makes you feel admired and important. And if you get enough of those likes, maybe you can convert them to money eventually, too. There’s now an entire industry defined by this that has shaped the aspirations of millions.

I’m glad I came to social media as an adult who grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s before everything went digital. I had a fully formed brain.

Happiness scholar Arthur Brooks came on the podcast recently, and he talks a lot about the meaning of life and how to be happy. You know what’s not on his menu? Financial advice. He talks about having something sacred in your life, and trying to follow the right goals. “The problem is that striving for happiness directly, in the abstract, is not possible. Instead you must choose proxy goals: metaphorical stars in the sky that you can see and judge to lead you to the greater well-being you desire.”

So how do you choose good goals? Arthur, very helpfully, has a few tips:

1. Focus on people, not things. It turns out, if there’s a three-word shorthand for the science of happiness: happiness is love.

2. It’s about you and your inner direction, not about how others see you. Social comparison and happiness are negatively correlated.

3. Make a happy journey your goal, too. Arriving at a destination doesn’t generally keep you joyous for long, so you need to enjoy the trip.

To which he adds a fourth:

4. Stay flexible and be ready to find another way. Things change. Feel free to change too.

This feels like much more satisfying, nuanced advice than “pad your bank account,” though that can of course be part of the goals that you set. Happiness is other people. In real life. Doing things that are meaningful to them. Let’s do more of that in the New Year.

Happy New Year! “Fix it in ’26.”

- Andrew

Speaking of money, to save yourself a couple hundred bucks, feel free to email matt@noblemobile.com if you’d like a few free months off of your wireless bill via Noble Mobile. My new book “Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?” comes out in February and the tour dates are up here. Use code ‘UBIUBI’ for 25% off the book. I’m also celebrating my bday on Jan. 15^th at our Offline Party in NYC so come find me there! Let’s make ’26 the best it can be!