Editor’s note: The semester has been winding down, and the holiday break beckons. With that in mind, PKU students reflect on the year they’re finishing, the break to come, and how they view their goals for 2026.

Peking University, December 31, 2025: I used to envision happiness as a kind of triumph—like a smooth journey or a perfectly captured photo—it must be something with good results and a story worth telling. It was always an arrival, announced and celebrated.

But 2025 has quietly shifted that vision. I am learning that happiness is not only the passionate arrival. Sometimes, it is simply the air I stand in. The only thing for me to do is to be still, and it settles naturally around me, not as an event, but as a state of being.

This feeling first met me on a long-awaited trip. I had longed to bike toward Mount Fuji’s glow with a youthful fervor. But the mountain was shrouded in rain on the day we took our ride, which was then cut short, and everything was soaked through. I was sulking on the return trip—my planned photos were gone, and the thought I’d put into my outfit was for nothing—the colorful and exotic dress I was wearing was just a damp rag now.

However, when we were depressingly going back, a soft, rain-washed breeze brushed my face. I looked up: a shaft of light had broken through the clouds, gilding the wet world in an unexpected, quiet luster. After the muggy heat and dashed plans, a simple brightness unclenched something tight in my chest.



I almost cried, not from sadness, but from a sudden knowing. This was happiness, not just the distant mountain top I’d chased, but here—in the cleansed air, the unexpected light, and the friends walking beside me in silence. It had been here all along.

I had another experience in Hong Kong that echoed this realization. After a wonderful concert of my idol with friends, we missed the last bus despite running as fast as we could. However, although we ended up paying more for a taxi—a seemingly imperfect outcome—the memory of us running through the night streets, excitedly reliving the thrilling moments, turned out to be a unique and wonderful experience in itself.



I began to realize that the things I had deeply experienced and the people who had shared those moments with me were even more worth cherishing. It’s the same on the volleyball court: I stopped being frustrated by a failed spike and started truly enjoying the easy laughter and companionship of my friends.



In 2025, several successful events marked my life. However, numerous ordinary yet unforgettable moments—these unplanned, unpolished fragments—let me truly feel I had lived.

For 2026, I will no longer search for happiness in a single destination. I will still pour my energy into the chase, into those arrivals. But I will also learn to abide, to linger whenever a note of joy descends. Facing two kinds of happiness, all I need to do is only stand still—and then catch both of them.



Written by: Xu Ziyue
Edited by: Chen Shizhuo
Photo by: courtesy of the author