If you have any form of social media today, you have most likely seen a variety of pictures, articles, and captions that have summed up how terrible 2016 was. Between the terror of multiple attacks that occurred nationally and the defeat that our country felt with an unexpected outcome of the presidential election, it can be easy to express our emotion via social platforms.

If we have the nerve to put all of our thoughts and feelings on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., how can we take this energy and put it to good use in order to make changes for the upcoming year? Aside from the national, social, and economic issues at hand, I am sure that I speak for many others when I say that we all also deal with personal dilemmas and breakdowns. Perhaps the classes that you took this past semester did not match your full potential. Maybe you experienced a heartbreak, a few even, in 2016. Personal triumph is never easy, especially when it overrides everything else in your life. With this being said, I have found that the key to this is to truly let things go.

Now, I understand that this is so much easier said than it is done. In fact, if someone had told me to let my last relationship or a fight with my best friend go, I probably would have freaked out honestly. It is natural to have the "how dare they" attitude when faced with these issues. However, more often than not, those telling you to do so are probably right. My favorite high school teacher would constantly remind our class that no matter what, life goes on. He would recite each time that one of us complained about a grade that even though the outcome was not what we expected, our birthday would still come up that year, Christmas would still happen on December 25, and the sun would still rise tomorrow. There is no amount of horror that can change life from moving forward.

I suppose I never gave his saying of this much thought until I become an "adult," and even still, I use that term very loosely. Yet, I understand it so much more now. Each poor grade becomes a little easier to reason with, each breakup is less hurtful than the last, and each report on the news is now followed by a "what can we do?" statement versus the invalid questioning and radical thinking. I firmly believe that a significant part of growing up is learning how to let go and to move on. Life does not stop for us to hesitate and think about our next move. We always have to keep going, whether we like it or not.

Clearly the past year has brought about an array of topics, both positive and negative that had emotions swirling in our nation. However, the key term in my previous statement is "past," and this is an idea that we have to continue to keep in mind. Unless there is a fantastic idea in the near future that leads to the breakthrough of time travel, we have to keep the past in the past, where it belongs, and to continue to move along in the journey of life, taking the good with the bad.