“I just have a really good feeling about next year,” says man who said identical thing twelve months ago.
RIVERSIDE HEIGHTS—Local resident Derek Mumford, 41, has officially declared 2025 “the worst year of my life,” a designation he previously bestowed upon 2024, 2023, 2022, and every year since approximately 2016, sources close to him confirmed Monday.
“I’m so ready for this year to be over,” Mumford told friends at a small gathering Sunday evening. “2025 was just… a lot. But I have a really good feeling about 2026. I think it’s going to be my year.”
Mumford’s wife, Theresa, who has heard this exact statement annually for nearly a decade, declined to comment but was observed staring silently out a window for several minutes.
A Pattern Emerges
Friends and family members report that Mumford’s year-end declarations follow a remarkably consistent pattern. Each December, he announces that the concluding year was uniquely terrible. Each January, he expresses confidence that the coming year will bring meaningful change. Each December, he appears genuinely surprised that it did not.
“He said 2024 was ‘finally rock bottom’ and that he’d ‘learned his lessons,'” recalled Mumford’s brother, Craig. “Then in January 2025, he said the same thing. I’ve started just nodding. It’s easier.”
Mumford’s social media history, reviewed by this publication, reveals a post from December 29, 2024, reading: “Goodbye 2024, you will NOT be missed. 2025 is going to be different. I can feel it.” A similar post from December 2023 expressed identical sentiments about 2024. The pattern continues backward for at least seven years.
Experts Weigh In
“This is extremely common,” explained Dr. Patricia Hendricks, a behavioral psychologist who studies annual optimism cycles. “The human brain has a remarkable capacity to forget that it felt exactly this way twelve months ago. We call it ‘calendar-based selective amnesia.’ It’s why gym memberships spike in January and why everyone thinks their particular year was historically unprecedented in its difficulty.”
When asked if any year in recent memory was objectively worse than others, Dr. Hendricks paused. “I mean, 2020 was pretty bad,” she conceded. “But people were saying 2019 was the worst year ever right up until March 2020. So.”
Looking Ahead
Mumford has already begun outlining his plans for 2026, which include exercising more, reading more books, spending less time on his phone, and “finally getting serious” about several goals he has described as priorities every year since 2018.
“This year is going to be different,” he said, adjusting a “2026” party hat he purchased at a dollar store. “I’ve grown a lot. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’m not the same person I was in January.”
His wife, reached for comment, said only: “He is exactly the same person he was in January.”
She then returned to staring out the window.
Developing.
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