No, You Didn't Have a Bad Year

Over the last several days, I’ve noticed a recurring sentiment among friends, colleagues, and even distant acquaintances: “This past year wasn’t my year.” Some say it with a shrug, perhaps trying to laugh it off, but for many, it’s a genuine and weighty conclusion. And for a significant number of those who mean it, the sentiment escalates into something stronger: “This year was a bad year for me.”

When someone makes that kind of sweeping judgment about an entire calendar year, my instinctive response is to nod sympathetically. I’ll contort my face into an expression of understanding—maybe throw in a quick, “Tell me about it,” or, “Sorry, man.” But over the past few days, I’ve been reflecting on that response. It feels inadequate, even hollow, given what’s really being said. More than that, I’ve found myself questioning the very premise: Was the year truly “bad”?

Here’s where I might ruffle some feathers. In fact, I hope it does. Because if you pause to consider the statement I’m about to make, it might linger beyond the couple of minutes it takes to read these paragraphs. Here it is:

You did not, in fact, have a bad year. You had a hard year. And that's actually good.

I can almost hear the objections now: “How dare you call it good?" or "How could you possibly know what kind of year I had?” These are fair questions. And so, before you roll your eyes and click away, let me explain.

If you look at the definition of “Bad” across the top 5 dictionaries of the English language you get a sense of what it means. Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “Not good in any manner or degree; defective, inferior, or inadequate in quality." Webster says, “Failing to reach an acceptable standard; poor, unfavorable, or harmful." American Heritage - “Not achieving an adequate standard; morally objectionable or wicked." You can look it up in all the others too (I won’t bore you), but here’s the theme: “Badness” is an inadequacy in meeting some standard of performance or “goodness.”

But what is that standard of goodness to which this “offending year” has failed to live? How are we adjudicating whether a year has lived up to “good?”

Aristotle (yeah the one who lived in 384 BC), was a brilliant craftsman of thought. And he tirelessly sought to understand the structure behind all things—man, nature, and cosmos. His work is often as dry as a carpenter's bench, but it is driven by a profound sense of wonder and insight. And he spent an enormous amount of his life considering “the good.”

In his Nicomachean Ethics, he states: The Good is "that at which all things aim." For humans, this is eudaimonia (often translated as "flourishing"), which is achieved through a life of virtuous activity in accordance with reason. Key to understanding Aristotle’s “good” is another concept known as “Virtue.” In Aristotle’s thinking, a person achieves the Good by cultivating moral and intellectual virtues, striking a "golden mean" between extremes of deficiency and excess (e.g., courage is the mean between recklessness and cowardice). Practically speaking, Aristotle’s Good is not an abstract ideal but is realized through specific actions and choices that fulfill human potential in the real world.

Ok. So back to that “bad” year. Even if you lost your job, or a relationship, or a business or even worse, a spouse, a loved one, or fill in the blank with you unique pain and hardships; you did not have a “bad year.” You had a “hard year” or a “painful year” or “the worst feeling year” of your life. But I would contend that no matter how difficult, painful, hard, or filled with suffering your year was, it is only truly bad if you, the human being with agency and autonomy over your thoughts, actions, desires and beliefs, decides not to grow, change, or become stronger as a result of those 365 days.

And I’m not speaking as one who has breezed through another year of success. Just to skim the surface, in 2024 alone, my business experienced some of the harshest financial struggles it has ever faced for the first 5 months of the year. Then it underwent an HR scandal that cost well over $50,000 and rocked the company for several months. Several family members dealt with severe health issues that created emotional and physical repercussions throughout the year. Then in November, my dad died after a lifelong struggle with addiction. And that’s just the surface. My team and family experienced spiritual warfare, attacks, struggles, and pain that goes far beyond the few examples I’ve shared. And yet. I think 2024 is perhaps one of the most important years we have collectively experienced, because it is molding us, shaping us, and preparing us for even bigger challenges, pain, and obstacles that we can overcome in the future. I’m not saying ignore the pain. Feel it. Deeply. Weep. Yell. Argue with God. Beg Him for answers (even if you don’t feel like you’ll get them). In many ways I don’t know why 2024 was as hard as it was for me, my family, and my company. But in a big-picture sense I have a suspicion. Because I believe we’re called to help usher in a new era of human flourishing (that eudaimonia that Aristotle talked about 2,300 years ago in ancient Macedonia). And at risk of sounding trite, I don’t believe you accomplish anything of significance without pushing through and growing through difficulty, pain and suffering. So? I’m choosing to push through. I’m not ignoring the pain or the grief, but I believe that as human beings we have a choice - we can either grow or we can wither away.

A year cannot be judged solely by its hardest moments, its most painful losses, or even its most glaring failures. Aristotle’s vision of the good reminds us that the value of life—of time itself—is measured not by its ease or its triumphs, but by its capacity to draw us closer to the fulfillment of our potential. Every setback, every grief, every stumble, every heartbreak holds within it the seed of growth, the possibility of flourishing, if only we choose to plant it.

So, perhaps the question isn’t whether the year was “bad” but whether it offered you a path—however difficult—to something greater. Did you gain resilience in the face of pain? Did you learn to love more deeply, even after loss? Did you uncover truths about yourself or the world that will shape you into a more virtuous, courageous, and wise person? If the answer to any of these is “yes,” then your year was not wasted. It was a year that stretched you, tested you, and prepared you for what’s next. And if the answer is “no,” I’d just say, that it doesn’t have to stay a “no,” because you can decide that, starting now, you will allow the pain to shape you and mold you into someone just a little better tomorrow than you are today.

Life’s goodness, after all, is not found in the absence of hardship but in the richness of a journey where even the thorns have a purpose. The challenge, then, is to stop measuring your years by what they took from you and start measuring them by what they gave you—the lessons, the wisdom, and the opportunities to grow. And if you do that, you may find that even the hardest of years was not “bad” but profoundly, imperfectly (and often, painfully) good.