Tuesday afternoon, December 30th. You're making lists. Not of what you want to do next year—lists of what you need to "finish" first. Conversations you need to have. Projects you need to wrap up. Feelings you need to resolve. You can't start fresh until you've properly ended the old, right? Wrong.

The Thesis

We don't need closure to move forward. We need closure because we're afraid of ambiguity. The cultural obsession with "ending things properly" isn't about completion—it's about control. About making messy reality fit neat narrative structures. About pretending life has chapters when it's actually one continuous, overlapping flow.

This means: Your need for closure is a delay tactic. You're not preparing to move forward—you're avoiding moving forward by insisting on impossible conditions.

The controversial claim: Closure is a narrative device, not a psychological necessity. Real life doesn't have clean endings. Things don't wrap up. Stories don't conclude. You just stop doing one thing and start doing another, often while the first thing is still hanging in the air.

The demand for closure before you can continue is stopping you from continuing.

Why We Think We Need Closure

The narrative structure we're taught:

Stories have three acts:

  • Beginning: Setup and promise
  • Middle: Conflict and development
  • End: Resolution and closure

The problem: Life isn't a three-act structure. It's an ongoing improvisation where scenes blend into each other, conflicts remain unresolved, and the "ending" of one story is usually just you walking away mid-sentence.

But we've internalized the structure:

Before you can start something new, you must:

  • Properly end what came before
  • Resolve open questions
  • Have "the conversation"
  • Get acknowledgment or validation
  • Feel complete
  • Tie up loose ends
  • Make sense of what happened

What this really means: Before you're allowed to move on, you must first achieve something that may be impossible, external to your control, or entirely unnecessary.

The Closure Trap in Action

Scenario 1: Relationships

"I can't move on until I get closure."

Translation: I need them to validate my feelings, acknowledge what happened, or have a final conversation that makes sense of everything.

Reality: They may never give you that. They may not see it the way you do. They may not care. They may not be capable of the conversation you need.

Meanwhile: You're stuck waiting for someone else to give you permission to move forward. Permission you can give yourself by just... moving forward.

Scenario 2: Projects

"I need to finish this before I start the next thing."

Translation: I can't have two incomplete things happening simultaneously. I need to wrap this up properly.

Reality: Finishing might take months. Or you might lose interest. Or it might never reach your standard of "done."

Meanwhile: You're not starting the thing you're actually excited about because you're forcing yourself to complete something you've already moved past.

Scenario 3: Year Transitions

"Before the new year, I need to..."

  • Process everything that happened this year
  • Make peace with my failures
  • Resolve open conflicts
  • Finish pending projects
  • Have closure on this chapter

Translation: I can't begin the next year until I've perfectly concluded this one.

Reality: January 1st arrives regardless. The year changes whether you've processed it or not. You don't get to finish one year before the next begins—they're not sequential chapters, they're arbitrary markers in continuous time.

The pattern: Demanding closure as a prerequisite for moving forward is a sophisticated form of staying stuck.

What Closure Actually Is

The uncomfortable truth: Closure is something you do for yourself, by yourself, regardless of external circumstances.

What people think closure means:

  • Getting answers to your questions
  • Receiving acknowledgment or apology
  • Having the final conversation
  • Understanding why something happened
  • Achieving resolution or agreement
  • Feeling "complete" about something

What closure actually is:

  • Deciding you're done thinking about this
  • Choosing to stop waiting for resolution
  • Accepting ambiguity and unanswered questions
  • Moving forward despite incompleteness
  • Internally declaring "this part is over" regardless of external validation

The shift: From "I need them to give me closure" to "I give myself closure by continuing."

Reality check: The things you think you need for closure—answers, acknowledgment, resolution—often never come. If closure required those things, you'd be stuck forever. Which is exactly what happens when you wait for closure instead of creating it.

Why We Really Want Closure

It's not about completion. It's about control and comfort.

Control: Closure makes you feel like you can understand, categorize, and file away experiences. It creates the illusion that life is manageable, that events have meanings, that endings are real.

Comfort: Ambiguity is uncomfortable. Not knowing is anxious. Unresolved situations create cognitive tension. Closure relieves that tension by pretending the situation is resolved when really you've just stopped engaging with it.

The truth beneath: You don't need the situation to be resolved. You need to stop feeling uncomfortable about it being unresolved.

But here's the thing: You can stop feeling uncomfortable without resolution. You do it by accepting that most things don't resolve. They just... stop being relevant.

What's Actually True

Reality 1: Most things don't end—they fade

Think about most of your past relationships, jobs, projects, phases:

  • How many actually had "closure"?
  • How many just... faded out?
  • How many ended mid-sentence?
  • How many left you with unanswered questions?

And yet: You moved on anyway. Without closure. The closure came from time and distance and starting other things, not from resolution.

What this means: You're already proof that you don't need closure to move forward. You've done it repeatedly. You're doing it now.

Reality 2: Waiting for closure is choosing to stay stuck

When you say "I can't move on until I get closure," what you're really saying is "I'm choosing not to move on until impossible conditions are met."

The conditions you're setting:

  • Someone else changes their perspective
  • The past starts making sense
  • Your feelings become uncomplicated
  • External circumstances align
  • You feel "ready"

The problem: These conditions may never be met. And while you wait, you're not moving. You're rehearsing the same situation, hoping for different resolution.

Reality 3: Closure is a decision, not a discovery

You don't find closure. You don't achieve closure. You don't get closure.

You decide you're done. That's it. That's the whole thing.

  • "I'm done waiting for this answer."
  • "I'm done needing this person to understand."
  • "I'm done trying to make this make sense."
  • "I'm done with this project being incomplete."

The discomfort: It feels irresponsible. Like you're giving up. Like you're leaving things unfinished.

The reality: You're accepting that finished and unfinished are arbitrary categories you're imposing on continuous experience.

What To Do Instead

1. Name what you're actually waiting for

When you say you need closure, get specific:

  • Closure from whom?
  • What exactly do you need to happen?
  • Who controls whether that happens?
  • What would it feel like if you got it?

Usually you'll discover:

  • You're waiting for something that may never come
  • It requires someone else to change
  • Even if you got it, it wouldn't feel how you imagine
  • You're using "need for closure" to avoid moving forward

2. Accept incompleteness as the default

Most of your life is unresolved:

  • Conversations you never finished
  • Questions no one answered
  • Relationships that just... stopped
  • Projects you abandoned mid-stream
  • Feelings that faded without resolution

And yet you're fine. You've continued. You've lived. The incompleteness didn't actually stop you.

The practice: When you notice yourself thinking "I need closure," remind yourself: "No, I don't. I just need to continue while things are incomplete."

3. Create your own closure through action

Closure doesn't come from events reaching satisfying conclusions. It comes from you moving your attention and energy elsewhere.

Not:

  • Having the final conversation
  • Getting acknowledgment
  • Understanding why
  • Receiving apology
  • Achieving resolution

Instead:

  • Starting the next thing
  • Focusing energy elsewhere
  • Choosing to stop revisiting this
  • Moving your body and attention
  • Doing something incompatible with staying stuck

The mechanism: Closure happens when the unresolved thing stops being central to your experience. That happens through displacement, not resolution.

4. Practice continuing without concluding

Start new things before old things are finished:

  • Begin the next project while the last one is incomplete
  • Start dating while you still have questions about your ex
  • Change directions mid-stream without explanation
  • Let conversations end without resolution
  • Move to the next phase while the previous one is still hanging

Why this works: It trains you to operate in ambiguity. To continue despite incompleteness. To generate momentum from moving forward, not from wrapping up the past.

The discomfort: It feels wrong. Messy. Irresponsible.

The reality: This is how life actually works. Clean endings are rare. Most transitions are messy overlaps.

Takeaways

Core insight: Closure is a narrative device we've mistaken for a psychological necessity. You don't need endings to continue—you just need to continue.

What's actually true:

  1. Most things don't end cleanly—they fade, and you move on anyway
  2. Waiting for closure is choosing to stay stuck on impossible conditions
  3. Closure is a decision you make internally, not something external you achieve
  4. You can continue before things are concluded—incompleteness is normal

What to do:

  1. Name what you're waiting for - Get specific about what "closure" means and who controls it
  2. Accept incompleteness - Most of life is unresolved; that's not stopping you from living
  3. Create closure through action - Move your attention and energy elsewhere
  4. Practice continuing without concluding - Start new things while old things remain unfinished

The uncomfortable truth:

You don't need them to acknowledge what happened. You don't need the situation to make sense. You don't need answers to your questions. You don't need to feel complete or resolved or ready.

You just need to stop waiting and start continuing.

The story doesn't need an ending. You just need to turn the page. While the previous page is still wet. While the sentence is unfinished. While the plot threads are hanging.

That's not failed closure. That's just continuation.

And continuation doesn't require permission, resolution, or understanding. It only requires that you keep moving.

Stop waiting for endings. Start continuing anyway.

Today's Sketch

December 30, 2025