2025 in a nutshell

Having indulged in some well-deserved laziness (with some indispensable breaks for physical exercise), I see no reason in being particularly creative and will rather look back at the passing year, which I believe was rather tough for me.

The first days were marked by the relationship break-up coming into effect. A year past that decision I am strongly convinced it has been the best I could do and despite not being lucky to get involved in a new, reasonable relationship, averting a lifelong misery and living a bit of lonely, yet not lonesome life has been a preferable option.

Dating-wise, I have been confronted with a phenomenon which has been widely described, i.e. women in their 30s considering being a relationship as an option to be chosen only if its benefits outweigh the expense of giving up on their independence. Threshold for mating has been raised tremendously high, with my odds of raising a family drastically(?) decreasing.

Health-wise, my recovery has been sustainable, with some natural minor ups and downs. I do take care of my spine, have a catalogue of dos and don’ts with long sitting being the activity more detrimental than carrying heavy loads. I badly fear the relapse of health crisis involving an awful pain and being bedridden, as I was in September 2024, so each time I feel a pain similar to the one 16 months ago, everything recedes into the background and I focus on exercising several times a day.

2025 was not abundant in travels, for several reasons. I have not flown a plane since October 2023. I have only ventured for nearly a week into Polish mountains and then for a weekend. I miss journeys a bit, as exploring new places and being away from home cleanses mind perfectly. But on the other hand, travelling has become a religion or one of several ways of filling existential void.

Work-wise, after 15 years in banking I have suffered a burnout (it seems I did not bother to commit it to the blog), but despite this, or in attempt to break away from this, I have been promoted. Currently I am finding my way around new duties, however still trying to keep my head above water, rather than comfortably floating on the surface. Hope things shape up over the next months, however my faith will likely be put to the test by the oncoming ownership change (my employer bound to change hands in January).

Politics-wise, in the run-up to the presidential election, I was zealously following the current affairs, hoping for the best, realising the worst was more probable than the polls suggested. My worries have materialised. Although I seemed to have been prepared for Mr Nawrocki’s victory, I needed to get over it. Since then I have been somewhat withdrawn from politics, focusing on other areas of life.

Charity-wise, my sixth stint in Szlachetna Paczka might have been the last one. I have not taken this decision, but give myself half a year to mull over it. If I give up on being a volunteer, I will be confronted with reinventing myself in the last quarter of the year. I will need to focus more on myself and searching for a meaning in life, even if the reality puts paid to my plans and hopes.

In recent days when my mind was slightly turned off, I repeatedly recalled the morning of 7 November 2025 when I got paralysed. There was a moment I feared it could be my last moments alive. I had a lust of for life, but it was more about a survival instinct than realising there were things I would not do if I passed away then. I thought about be parents’ grief, my friends, unfinished things at work and at Szlachetna Paczka. Several weeks after that I realise I need to reach out for more joy in life and take care of myself. And I wish the same to you.

Szlachetna Paczka 2025 before the dust has settled

To be precise, it has not fully settled. One of families under my care stills awaits a sofa bed (delivery delayed), another one I have looked after waits for bedside lamps and a chair assembly which I will do myself. Four families' donators have buggered up and we (volunteers from Ursynów area) will need to fix up money from an "emergency fund" to meet their needs. Yesterday I belatedly purchased and delivered a shower booth for a family I picked up as a donator on 8 December. Well, the Yuletide celebration has not yet commenced.

My sixth edition is the first one when I am not in a relationship. The other person close to me used to be a counterbalance and kept by involvement at bay. This year I had decided to dedicate more energy to Szlachetna Paczka and now feel drained of it, yet not on account if my relationship status, but due to organisational errors made all along.

The recruitment process has been screwed up. Far too many people on managerial positions and as rank-and-file volunteers should have never found themselves in their roles. The absence of black lists (of people with negative feedback from previous editions) has definitely contributed to this.

In the very area of Ursynów we onboarded 64 families to receive aid (vs. previous record of 54) and had around 35 volunteers (10 more than in previous years on average). Quantity of staff has not translated into quality. Although we have had some outstanding newcomers, the number of insufficiently involved (or disappearing along the way) volunteers was appallingly high. Needless to say duties they had undertaken had to be taken over.

In the run-up to the final weekend there has been a massive problem of families not picked by any donators. Volumes could be spoken of reasons why it happened like this, but since there is no proof any of my theories is right, I will keep them for myself. In social media the most common notion was putting it down to some families' sky-high needs, which even if justified, are hard to be fulfilled by ordinary people (may a costly leaking roof repair serve as an example).

No reliable statistics will show how many Paczkas (neither "box" nor "parcel" renders well what a Paczka in Szlachetna context is) have eventually been prepared by the volunteers and their companions. In Ursynów area 4 out of 64 families have been picked by us. Additional time and money spent on saving families from being left out in the cold are the biggest cost hidden in joyful celebration of the recent edition.

I would hazard a guess Szlachetna Paczka is one of the most demanding forms of volunteering which can be taken up in Poland. It is not just about coping with horrific stories of o people's penury, but also about time dedicated to do it properly and having to arrange a lot on one's, frequently making extensive use of one's multiple resources.

I believe past this edition Szlachetna Paczka's relationship with donators and volunteers will be under strain and lots of effort will have to be put to rebuild them.

Will Stowarzyszenie Wiosna face criticism it ought receive? Each year it seems those in charge of the initiative are learning from mistakes made in a previous years. But once a new edition kicks off for good, it turns out history repeats itself, but the price paid by the most responsible volunteers goes up.

Early December snaps

More than preoccupied with overload at work and Szlachetna Paczka, hence not feeling like writing up a lofty essay. Instead – some snaps from the neighbourhood, taken on my way to my parents and back, by bike, yesterday.

The old house (being a remnant of the bygone Moczydło village), whose dwellers used a portable toilet put up on a backyard, is no longer inhabited. The plot of land parallel to ul. Moczydłowska most likely has been sold. I wonder if the buyer will be intent to erect here a row of terraced houses, each priced at zillions.

Ul. Leśna connecting ul. Moczydłowska to ul. Puławska is nearly empty. Despite warm, autumnal weather (+7C today, but windy), the forest was anything, but full of walkers, cyclists, nor runners.

Birch trees are the last to shed leaves. The one snapped still retained leftovers of its yellow dressing. If winds continue to blow as strongly as today, by the end of the first decade of December all leaves will be on the ground.

Fancy buying a Christmas Tree? In several spots you can already do so. I am not fond of starting celebrations early and prefer to kick off the festive season as the old tradition proscribes, i.e. on 24 December. People with small children, however, tend to decorate the Christmas trees in early December to create the atmosphere indoors. Outdoors it does not feel like Christmas at all. Judging by long-term forecasts, December 2025 stands a chance to the warmest since records began in Warsaw.

Close to my parents’ house, in Mysiadło, I come across a little flooding which makes ul. Łabędzia impassable for motor vehicles. It brings to mind the effect of downpours in early June 2010 when this very spot was under water too.

The street is waterlogged, I make it by bike, but water slightly plays havoc with brakes. This looks like waterworks breakdown. Fortunately, at my parents’ the water supply was not cut off.

On my way home I stopped over to snap the intersection of ul. Puławska and ul. Jagielska being rebuilt. Local newspapers say ul. Jagielska will be connected to the Piaseczno-bound lanes of ul. Puławska and a new set of traffic lights will be put up here. Not feeling sorry for drivers wasting their lives in traffic jams here.

Not a new post in a week, as Szlachetna Paczka final weekend is due.

Becoming a manager (at work)

For many years I would think leadership was not for me. I preferred to pursue the alternative professional development path, i.e. becoming an expert in a certain area, having an independent advisory-profiled position and not having to wrangle with any subordinates.

I revised my approach in 2022 when I took over as an area leader in Szlachetna Paczka. I was in charge of 25 people, recruited by my seasoned companions or myself, found my way around it stunningly well, which was additionally backed by glowing praise towards my management style expressed in the feedback (passed on anonymously to my bosses) past the edition.

I was lucky to have reasonable and reliable people in my team and back then I realised the comfort of being a boss lies in the team you lead. Wise, reliable and communicative people can make leadership a pleasure, while the opposite type of people can turn it into a nuisance and an ordeal.

The generously employer-subsidised (until March 2027) Skoda Octavia has hindered my motivation to seek new challenges outside my current workplace, hence for a while I had been on a lookout for an opportunity window, i.e. vacancy on a managerial position. In March 2025 one of senior B-1 managers decided to quit. His departure triggered a knock-on effect which resulted in a team head vacancy to be filled.

The recruitment process was more demanding than I thought and I can boast of approaching it with carefully-thought-out plan and vision. I believe this contributed most to my nomination. I did not have to prove my hard skills, as I had been doing that for past 11 years. In a modern corporation soft skills matter most and they are examined during interviews. With hindsight I recall those checks as suitable for a senior executive rather than for an ordinary team leader.

I am looking forward to new challenges, yet with some fears at the back of my head. I slightly worry if my subordinates accept me. A crucial detail is that I am returning in a different role to the department where I worked between 2018 and 2023. On top, there is a risk some people I will be in charge of applied for the same position and were rejected. I will need to learn my team members' work style and come to terms with the fact not everybody is an anti-procrastinator, not everybody's business English is as good as mine, not everybody minds neatness of documents as I do (apologies for this one-off lack of humility). I will be forced to attend some dead-end meetings which since the onset of remote working have become a plague in corporations. Their side effect is work piling up and needed to be done overtime for which I will no longer be eligible a compensation (such is the labour code in Poland). And on top, I will need to grapple with office politics...

The new chapter officially starts tomorrow, but customarily for internal transfers, the transition from the current to the new position is actually a process spread over time. Keep fingers crossed for me.

Dom dobry - film review

I am quite fond of Wojciech Smarzowski’s films, to such extent that as a person not into a moving pictures, I reviewed four of his films here: Drogówka, Podmocnym aniołem, Wołyń and Kler.

Whenever Mr Smarzowski releases a new film, he touches upon a meaningful social problem and depicts it hitting exactly where it hurts. For many his films are too naturalistic and filthy. Many critics have claimed while shooting “Dom dobry” he had gone over the top with filth and cruelty, an approach I cannot hold with, since my sensitivity to filth and cruelty is probably below-average. Lots of people who have seen the film argue the actor who played the oppressor, Tomasz Schuchardt, I believe unknown to wider audience until now, was the least suitable for the role. When looking at him, I would argue he has a son-of-a-bitch apparition at first sight. In one of the pre-premiere interviews he revealed in had been impossible to identify with the character he had play, but someone must have done that job.

Domestic violence is a hidden problem not only in Poland. Dramas play out behind closed door in families which seem normal. Hundreds thousand of Poles, mostly women, are victims of oppressors who resort to physical, mental, economic and sexual misdeeds to bully their targets. I am immensely grateful to Mr Smarzowski for painting an accurate and merciless picture of the phenomenon.

The director must have done a lot of homework while delving on the topic before setting out to shoot the film. He shows a repeatable scheme which puts a victim into a vicious circle and then keeps it turning. It begins with upbringing in a defunct family, running away from it into the arms of at first charming tormentor who bombs their new partner with love and slowly manipulates them. Unacceptable behaviours slowly creep in and get more frequent among the good moments. Victims are usually treated like a boiled frog and refuse to try to break away from a toxic relationship for several reasons, including economic dependence, lack of family or friends to take comfort in or toxic relationship patterns learnt at home.

The premiere of the film coincided with an intense time in Szlachetna Paczka. This year I have come across a few women being hosts of Warszawski Ośrodek Interwencji Kryzysowej who have run away from their violent husbands or partners and are on their way to start over. Having listened to the stories of their lives I partly relived them in a cinema. It also occurred to me I owe them watching this film if I am to be an emphatic volunteer.

To spoil as little as possible, the film has two endings. One of them is a poignant reminder not every cloud has a silver lining and an oppressed human might overstep its boundaries to fight out freedom.

A call for a slow-down

The recent weeks have been overly hectic. A combination of things going uphill in Szlachetna Paczka (and me trying to solve all oncoming problems), a pile-up of complicated transactions on the table at work and other minor stuff have been depriving me of time to get proper rest and recharge batteries.

On Thursday, 6 November I woke up before 6:00 a.m., commuted to the office, toiled away in haste, knocked off after 5:00 p.m., came back home, changed clothes and cycled to Warszawski Ośrodek Interwencji Kryzysowej (no English equivalent of such centre I would be familiar with) to have three meeting with families to be potentially taken care of as part of Szlachetna Paczka programme. I returned home shortly before 10:00 p.m. with head full of issues to be sorted out.

On Friday, 7 November the plan was to put the white shirts to the washing machine and hang them out to dry on a balcony before setting off to Ośrodek Pomocy Społecznej (council centre for social welfare) to pick up papers for Szlachetna Paczka and then to work, the to have three other charity-related meeting in the evening. Upon eating breakfast I realised the washing machine did not make any sound. I headed to the bathroom it check it out. The appliance was dead and not reacting to any methods of restarting. I had to open the washing machine, whose drum was full of water. I managed to get rid of the dirty water overflowing the bathroom, get the shirts out, wring them and put them into a bowl. As I was about to take the unwashed shirts to the balcony, I felt a strain in my back ribs, behind my chest. It virtually paralysed me. I only managed to fall over in a controlled way. I could not move for some 10 minutes, then as the pain begun to ease, I crawled to the bedroom, scrambled up to bed and weighed up pros and cons of calling an ambulance. As I was feeling better minute by minute, I did not decide to do so.

Some two hours later I felt good enough to leave home, take a 504 bus to pick up documents from Ośrodek Pomocy Społecznej, ambled to the underground station and turned up late at work. In the office, I felt unwell and gave in after two hours, took the laptop and headed home. Back in my bedroom, I ordered a telemedicine appointment, told a doctor what had happened a few hours earlier and was instructed to report to a hospital immediately. Kind of scared I called a taxi and 20 minutes later I was in an emergency ward of Medicover hospital. Long story short, I was thoroughly examined, mostly to rule out heart attack and diagnosed with a muscle crump, then given a drip with antispasmodics. After a two-hour lie-in, I was discharged and felt well enough to return home by public transport, calling on a pharmacy to buy myself painkillers.

On Saturday, 8 November I carried on with painkillers but went to the swimming pool in the evening. On Sunday, 9 November I cleaned my flat and gave up on my painkillers, as they were playing havoc with my stomach. On Monday, 10 November I was back on my bicycle. Up until now I feel well, although I do have no idea what caused the incident which took place on 7 November. I presume it was stress and haste overload, so the lesson learnt is take less on my back and slow it down. I am trying hard, but the process is slow and I stand a chance to pull it off once Szlachetna Paczka is over, i.e. in the second half of December.

With respect to the broken-down washing machine, it turned out my MPM appliance had most likely given up the ghost due to steering module defect. Such spare parts are not manufactured, nor sold as used ones and none of local technician wanted to take up the challenge of repairing the washing machine of that brand. I felt guilty of producing nearly 60 kilograms of rubbish (I hope somebody recycles parts of that washing machine), but also enjoy the comfort of using a brand-new Bosch washing machine. Before ordering it, I have made sure crucial spare parts are available and the appliance is constructed in a way which facilitates repair of nearly all imaginable defects (AI helps with such exercise and substantiates its answers). Besides, my new washing machine has been manufactured in Poland, near Łódź. Happily, my other white goods, all purchased in 1Q2019 are holding up well and I hope they will outlive substanially my washing machine which had served me for six years and eight months.

Od ja do my - book review

Volant is one of those contemporary Polish influencers whose online career began with blogging and with time expanded into social media and books (which often are just a well-arranged compilation of blog posts written over time). As his recognisability grew, Volant quit his anonymity and appears publicly under real name, Michał Szatiło. He is one of most renowned gurus of romantic relationships in Poland, privately a husband and father of two daughters, practising what he preaches. After years of hard work, he monetises on his popularity. His books are available online only and the one I'm about to review would set you back PLN 99 + delivery cost. I have hunted a used one in OLX, saved PLN 40 and have not helped Mr Szatiło out.

When setting about reading, I was sceptical towards the book, anticipating some 10% of its content would be ground-breaking. Astonishingly, I found between 20% and 30% to be of added value.

Volant posits (right on) the percentage of singletons these days is high since people tend to claim something has gone wrong with other people and with the world itself. Making a martyr of yourself and bearing a grudge against all potential partners who do not stack up against your perfection is the ideal recipe not to pair up by the end of your days. I need to take it to heart.

Easing up, as Volant advises, is the first, yet still insufficient step. Opportunities to do things, explore, visit places and... go places crop up every day. Seize them, as they involve meeting new people via whom you can get to know other new people and boost your chances to find a life companion offline.

To impress somebody you need to be attractive. You won’t change your look, apparition, height, sometimes you have limited impact on your weight, but a charming person is characterised by a beautiful mind and broad horizons. Therefore "doing your bit" is essential if you want to be perceived an attractive human. Volant tells you as an adult who left university, whose network has loosened, almost always you will start doing your bit on your own and only then people will join and follow you.

The author puts on the agenda one of my primary worries which has kept me company for years, i.e. I do not approach a woman romantically until I make sure she is not in a relationship. But if she indeed is taken, she should turn me down politely and I should back down, doing my best not to waste an opportunity.

While trying to pick out factors which bode well for a relationship in the long run, Volant selects three: the look (a sexual attraction is a must) which brings partners together, similar lifestyle and values which keep them together.

Dating apps are considered a valuable option, provided people who match each other ought to meet up offline possibly quickly. While face to face, the first conversation matters. It often follows a scheme of asking and answering questions about each other, resembling a mutual interrogation. Instead, people should talk about their goals, values, dreams, inhibitions and dislikes, boosting the odds of finding a common tongue.

If it clicks in, an early stage of a relationship develops. It is the time when partners make mistakes which impinge on the rest of their life together. This is the time for being 100% oneself, but not bending over backwards to be 200% yourself, to set boundaries and to talk over issues which arise as red flags. A fear of rejection, unjustified hopes things will shape up and other factors keep most people in the circle of those mistakes and consequently most of them end up in unsatisfactory relationships.

Volant calls into question a popular assertion that building a relationship must take a lot of effort. He claims a decent relationship needs to be fostered, but he compares it a long walk in flat terrain, which is a form of light physical exercise and contrasts it to a steep climb uphill, which involves substantial strain. He says if your relationship over the first two years is a road uphill, most likely it is a dead-end one.