Published by Leea Ivanel -- December issue -- OPINION
This year, 2016, dubbed as “the worst year on Earth” by many, is about to come to an end, and all I have to say is, “Thank God.”
Well, not quite – I actually have a lot more to say than that.
The truth is, 2016 started off as a horrible year for me. As the clock struck 12 on New Year’s Eve, instead of celebrating with my friends and family, I was alone in my room playing Skyrim as my uncle went into surgery for what we soon found out to be stage four cancer.
The year didn’t get much better from there, either – if anything, it only got worse. First, our cat died. Then, one of the chicks in the nest outside of our kitchen window was brutally massacred by a crow before I could properly smack it with a broom. Third, everyone in my family got some mysterious disease – my mother has managed to end up in the emergency room five times already, and every time they just tell her she’s fine.
After everything that had happened, it quickly became a joke in my family that the year was cursed from the beginning, and that the course wouldn't break until the next New Year’s Eve.
However, a couple of months into this year, I found out that it wasn’t just me and my family who were experiencing this pattern of bad luck. As it turns out, people from all over the world were as well.
Social media, from Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr, was filled with a constant stream of ranting and complaining, as well as cheap and often cynical jokes about the state of the world, all wrapped in a blanket of, “When will this hellish year end?”
And let’s be honest, this year has been a bad joke for the entire world.
2016 got off on the wrong foot with Brexit, and then proceeded to fall on its face with wars all over the world, terror attacks in Europe and the Middle East, the Pulse gay nightclub shooting, North Korea declaring war on the United States and Twitter starting a meme marathon about it, Turkey having a coup, as well as forming an alliance with Russia, as well as many, many other examples.
2016 was not done with us just yet however, and in the last 53 days of the year we, in my opinion, got a racist, sexist, Islamophobic pumpkin elected president of the most powerful country in the world.
For the most part, everything that could have gotten worse actually got worse.
Therefore, I think we can all agree that 2016 has, at least on a global scale, been the very definition of a “terrible year.” The only thing that’s left is for the world to set itself on fire before New Year’s Eve comes.
However -- and forgive the hypocrisy -- we shouldn't spend a lot of time complaining about the trainwreck this year has been or crying on each others’ shoulders – we need to make the best of what we have and to move on.
Like it or not, 2016 happened, and the reality is that we cannot change that. However, we can change how we feel about it and how we will approach 2017.
While 2016 was the worst year of my life, I have managed to be happier, more at peace, and feel more free than I ever have my whole life. I have managed to live through things this year that I was once convinced would kill me, and I actually got better because of them, not worse.
If I, probably one of the most pessimistic, cynical, and negative people at this school, can manage to be alright at the end of this year despite everything that has happened, so can you.
2016 has taught me that at the end of the day, things can be all right. It might take time, effort, and massive amounts of patience, but if we just keep striving to make the best out of what we have we can keep living.
Thus, I encourage all of you who do think this has been the worst year to think about any good it brought and any positive change it made in either your life or someone else's, and to let go of all the bad things that have happened.
In fact, a study led by Michigan State University showed that remembering and concentrating on positive memories combined with fake smiling leads to a more productive and happy state of being, showing just how much a change in the way you hold yourself and what you focus on can help.
I also encourage you to find whatever makes you happy and hang on to it, because even when it seems like the whole is falling apart, you need to keep yourself together.
After all, 2016 is going to be over in just a few weeks, and we will all have a fresh new year to look forward to, even if 2016 will, according to National Geographic, last one second longer than it was supposed to.