How to survive 2017 (An overview of 2016)

2016 could easily be called the ominous year (exceptions of the plaque and world wars). With the clear disgust, disapproval and disconcern about the year, all of us are the waiting for the last few days to pass like sand through fingers. Carrie Fisher dying seemed to be the cherry on the cake collapsing under its own weight.

I don’t want to be chased by an angry mob millennials, but I honestly did have a decent 2016. Which qualifies me to write a guide to how to survive the coming year, 2017. Come on guys be a little excited, if anything, atleast for the wild parties on 31^st and for those of you who go to sleep at 10:30 just to rebel, or spend time in peace; I see you, I see you good.

Well I could sure make a list but that is too boring even for my taste. Secondly by no means this might work for everyone so just enjoy my mindless chatter and my un-asked for expert opinion.

Now you must know I survived my 2016 because of my 8 month long vacation which stretched on till August. Thus most of my time was wasted away in staring at my laptop screen mindlessly or coloring on the walls. I read books and thus tried to stay in touch with my hunger for knowledge. I went into a coma where my assimilation of knowledge was just like one listening to music. Taking in the words, but not the meaning.

This seems like a complain, well it is, but not as much as it is a lesson. I learnt that reading, getting active information is the key to wisdom. Now I aint trying to sound like a 90 year old man or a monk, just giving some good ‘ol advice, read as much as you can, because nothing adds more character than books.

I went through a lot of anxiety and in fact developed a hysteric sense of humor due a project taken up by me. Obviously a success, I think the biggest lesson of the year would be to have patience towards people and situation, because in the end, everything ends well. Putting it into perspective, waiting for your order at the favourite restaurant is always worth it.

And with those wise words, developed a new emotion, we millennials constantly seem to be experiencing is “ahhh fuck that” often exclaimed with droopy eyes and bushy hair. This taught me that some situations just need you to kick back and relax because these people or things don’t need your time and energy, because it is not going to add to you as a person.

I saw way too many posts on social media where people expressed their reluctance to go out there and put effort into their week or day. I did the exact opposite and I can rightfully say I did conquer each day everyday. All y’all got to do is get out of bed and look at the glass as half full.

Trust me it works.

As philosophical as this post is getting, I think it’s okay, three days to the year end and I can assure you I am now a much calmer and happier person. Honestly with this age of social media and all information always floating around in the car, we as humans still failed to acknowledge the real news of the world and instead dwelled in the media spun stories about war, politics and economics. 

Obviously as general public, that’s the information we have access to but it’s up to us to not jump on to bandwagons we don’t know the destination or origin of. It’s time for us to get smarter and put our mind to more useless things than scrolling on Instagram at 3 am.

It’s clear that most things went wrong in the year. The uproar about differences in religion. Un deserving presidential candidates, shadow of war in the middle east we always pray for, political unrest in India and its fight with Pakistan and on a more personal level loss of motivation, death of our favorite singers and actors, stupid medical examination goof ups, student suicides and demonetization.

But keeping in mind all the unfortunate events we had a lot of good news to look forward to in 2016 too. PV Sindhu’s win at the Olympics, wider acceptance of the LGBTQ community, beautiful Canadian Prime minister opening borders to refugees and other countries following, Consequences of Brexit are subjective, introduction of a digital India, more woman centric films like Dangal, Hidden figures. Uber and other startups rose in India (oh thank thy lord for Uber) Sure war still exists, but with collective effort of our main nations, 2017 will be a year where second world countries become strong in defense and sociopolitical situations, not sure about the first world countries.

Sure the world seems to be on a tip of collapsing, but I can’t guarantee what sort of year 2017 will be. But the least we can do is have a positive outlook and stop binging on mindless videos and go out and breath and more aware. Start thinking about the earth and where our individual actions lead the world.

We don’t want to be only known as the generation that killed the Great Barrier Reef.

Oh and a Happy New Year!