Okay, so 2016 really wasn’t the greatest. The election tore the country apart. We watched the United Kingdom leave the European Union. We met Brock Turner. Harambe was shot. Zika broke out. We lost Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and Harper Lee. We read countless headlines of hate crimes and police brutality. And so it’s not totally crazy to see why a lot of people want to name 2016: “the worst year ever”.
But really, some pretty awesome stuff also happened in 2016.
The Rio Olympics
Katie Ledecky won an Olympic final by 11 seconds. Michael Phelps won his 23rd gold medal. Simone Biles came into the games relatively unknown and left a superstar. Usain Bolt ran super fast. There were more female athletes than ever before. And more openly LGBT athletes than ever before.
There are more tigers in the world.
And more pandas.
And more manatees.
The ice bucket challenge actually accomplished something.
Remember when we all dumped freezing water over our heads for ALS? Yeah, it actually worked. The University of Massachusetts medical school found the gene linked to causing ALS.
Trees in India.
800,000 volunteers planted 50 million trees in India in 24 hours.
Two brothers saw color for the first time.
The Juno spacecraft reached Jupiter.
Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar.
FINALLY!
Harriet Tubman replaced Andrew Jackson on the $20.
“Hamilton”
While the show officially opened in 2015, it swept the world this year. And it was pretty freaking awesome.
We gained some pretty good music.
Beyoncé gave us Lemonade. Kanye gave us The Life of Pablo. Chance gave us Coloring Book. Frank Ocean gave us Blonde. Kendrick Lamar gave us untitled unmastered. Drake gave us Views. JoJo gave us Mad Love. Lady Gaga gave us Joanne.
The Cavs won the NBA Championship.
After 52 years.
And the Cubs won a World Series.
After 108 years.
WW2 Vet Funeral.
Okay, so it’s not too awesome that a WW2 vet died. Or that he didn’t have any surviving family. Or that he was homeless. But what IS super awesome is that 200 strangers came to his funeral.
Harry Potter continues!
The release of the new book The Cursed Child and the new movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has Harry Potter fans everywhere super excited.
Finding Dory!
We waited 13 years for this! Yeah, it wasn’t as good as Finding Nemo but it was pretty freaking cute.
A plane went around the entire world without a drop of fuel.
Someone stopped self-harming.
Someone is beating an eating disorder.
Someone overcame depression.
Someone got help for an addiction.
Someone beat cancer.
Someone married the love of their life.
Someone had a baby.
So, yeah, we dealt with a lot of crap in 2016. But a lot of really good, cool, awesome things also happened. To the world. To individual people. Good things happen all around us, all the time, every day. Choose to see the good things.
