(Unexpected) Wisdom for a Happy 2026

When the icon of capitalism reminds us what truly counts.

I want to share with you some of the clearest wisdom I’ve come across recently.
It didn’t come from an ancient Tibetan manuscript.
It didn’t come from a neuroscience journal.

It came from a shareholder letter.

More precisely: from Warren Buffett’s final public message to shareholders.

Buffett is the icon of capital accumulation — personally valued at around $150 billion, and at the head of Berkshire Hathaway, a financial juggernaut worth over $1 trillion. He has spent his life accumulating wealth, and has done so successfully that he now possesses more wealth than most nations. The Oracle of Omaha is, in many ways, the embodiment of modern capitalism.

After serving as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway since 1965, Buffett stepped down at the end of 2025 — and his final shareholder letter reads like a testament.

And yet, in the final lines of that last letter, he speaks again and again about what has nothing to do with money.

He writes about enduring friendships.
He writes about the good fortune of a loving community.
And he writes about kindness — which he calls “costless, but priceless.”

That line stopped me cold.

There was nothing flashy in his words. No grand philosophy. No dramatic conclusions. Just simple sentences, written in his usual understated style.

But coming from him, they are unexpected.

Here is a man who epitomizes wealth and the capitalist ethos of our era, telling us that true wealth is not found in our bank accounts.

It is found in our relationships.

New Year Wishes

As we step into 2026, many of us will set goals, make plans, chase projects, build strategies.
We will count time, money, achievements, milestones.

But perhaps this year deserves another kind of measure.

The measure of who we stay close to.
The measure of how gently we treat one another.
The measure of how present we are in the lives that touch ours.

If even the Oracle of Omaha, 95, ends his life’s work by pointing not to numbers, but to people, then maybe this is the simplest and strongest wish we can make:

May 2026 be rich in friendships.
May it be generous in kindness.
May it be abundant — in what sustains you, in what supports your life,
and in what cannot be counted, but is always felt.