I recently returned home from a ten day trip to Japan. While in Japan, I got to stay with a Japanese host family and really experience the everyday life of a Japanese citizen. I could write countless pages about the things I enjoyed and learned in Japan - however, the biggest thing that has stuck out to me about Japan since returning to America has been how proud the Japanese are. When you go to Japan, you'll never find a person who has a bad thing to say about their country. Not only are they a proud people, but they are an optimistic people. For the longest time, I have felt that my home country was full of the same unapologetically proud people. Upon returning from Japan, though, I cannot help but notice that the United States has come to an age of haunting pessimism plaguing our country.

Allow me to elaborate: I do not mean to say that the United States lacks proud citizens. It is clear that our people - if asked by foreigners - would sing praises for the land of the free. The pessimism does not come from being ashamed to be an American. Rather, the pessimism I am referring to comes from a lack of confidence in the future.

I think this problem is most clearly seen in the state of American politics. While I do not wish to chime in on who I would vote for in the 2016 election (I won't be 18 in time for the election), I do think it's worth voicing my concerns for both Republicans and Democrats - specifically, the approaches that each campaign seems to be taking in order to gain support. Donald Trump's message is the loudest, and it is indeed more directly pessimistic. He preaches of a country that needs to be "made great"-implying heavily through his speeches that the country in which we now live is somehow not great, to begin with. Many of Trump's supporters have rallied around this message, claiming that Obama and the liberal agenda have brought this country to the brink of destruction. As I said, I don't wish to commentate on politics here, but it is undeniably disturbing to watch clips of people who are rallied around passionate anger.

Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to have taken that anger shown in the media and used it as a vehicle to say that the country could get ruined, if Trump were elected. Most of their campaigning for Hillary Clinton has revolved around a horror story in which Donald Trump is the boogie man. While Trump definitely has his apparent issues, Hillary's are just as glaring-albeit, different types of issues. And even within the party itself, you have a spirit of "us vs. them" when it comes to the mentality of most Bernie supporters, as of recently.

Beyond the presidential election, we as a nation seem to be plagued by an inherent refusal to compromise. Conservatives and liberals both refuse to find a middle ground. Some argue that such grounds are a nice fairy tale for younger generations - but such compromise is not impossible. The Missouri Compromise is a good historical example, for instance, and most of what the Libertarian Party preaches is a modern iteration of that spirit. Why can the majority not adopt this same mentality?

I look at Japan and see a people that are proud to be Japanese. I come home and see a people who claim the best days of their country are behind it - as if the world itself is coming to an end. This piece is going to be a little bit shorter than others, mostly because the point I'm trying to make is quite simple. Republican, can you adopt an optimistic spirit about America's future even if Hillary Clinton is elected President? Democrat, can you adopt an optimistic spirit about America's future even if Donald Trump is elected? Whichever party wins in November, can that party not treat the other so terribly? Can the two major parties begin to compromise together? Can liberals and conservatives both make sacrifices in the name of progress?

Can you, American, have hope for the future of this country and be proud of the nation in which we currently live?

If we cannot do even just one of these things, then indeed, America's best days are behind it - and no one, not even Clinton or Trump, can repair that broken spirit. We must look within ourselves and set aside selfishness for the good of our country.

That is all. So with that, go into tomorrow knowing that America is great right now if you just open your eyes to the freedoms and liberties that we now hold. We have freedom to worship, work, and live in any way we please. Let us never forget just how rare such liberties are.

On this day, I say I'm proud to be an American-and I'll be proud to be an American if I watch President Hillary Clinton get inaugurated or President Donald Trump.