In the wake of the election and inauguration of the United States' 45th president, I find myself a little disappointed in our country. Not because of the candidate we elected, but because of the actions and attitudes of the majority of our public.

Reality is, something I encourage everyone to come to terms with. The reality of our situation, as people of a great nation, is Donald Trump has become the President of the United States of America. It should be a simple fact, but instead, #NotMyPresident is trending on social media and society has spent the past two months posting hate on every possible platform. I understand many are upset with the outcome of the election, but I believe the time has come for everyone to begin to do the adult thing and accept reality.

Was Donald Trump my favorite choice for the presidency? Not especially. However, I see that my country has elected him, meaning that some people I love and more people around me than I realized view him as the best choice for our future. Respect is important, and as there are people around me who did support him, I choose to respect their opinions and trust that their vision of him as our leader will be a good one. Some of the greatest objection to his rise to power is the lack of respect we will receive from other countries with him as our leader, but I must ask, how can we ever expect other countries to respect us if we can not even respect each other's differing opinions and our own leader?

I also have had a hard time understanding how so many people are angry about the hateful attitude of our president, but combat it with spreading hateful sentiment through media and propaganda. If we were really united against hate, we would fight it with love and acceptance, and the desire to create a better situation. My mother always taught me growing up, "If you don't like something, change it."

So where's the positive change, America?

I understand why so many people are upset, but I also see that reality has set in and it is time for us to wake up. It is time for us to stop tearing apart our future and claiming that it will be the end of a peaceful and strong America. We are the country that turned the tides of wars throughout the 20th Century, and have fought and stood for what is right since the very beginning. The time has come for us to stand together once again and begin to respect each other and ourselves.

Donald Trump is our new President. Some of us are upset, some of us are celebrating.

The reality is that it does not matter who is the head of our country as long as we stand united and try to remember why we are so strong as a people.

Accept yourselves, America. Try to remember that hate will only tear us apart further in this time we need to be finding our unity.