2016 in review: Stop hating on a harmless year and actually do something to fix the next

First off, this has hardly anything to do with gaming, but I’m the Editor-in-Chief of this site and, as such, I get to indulge myself.

All across the internet I see hate towards 2016. It’s an inanimate object, hardly deserving of this misplaced anger. This past year, has, quite honestly, provided the highest and lowest points of my entire life. With my successes, I celebrate; my failures, I learn from and do my damnedest to avoid a repeat. For each and every negative milestone I can recall, the buck, ultimately, stops with me. It was my action, or inaction, that caused the event to occur. If I’m mad at anything at all, it should be myself.

That’s it.

I realise there are occurrences outside of my control that I’m wholly disappointed by. My marriage still isn’t recognised in Australia, and Trump — well, enough said. I cannot change these things, but I can still learn from them. I can gleam how to act specifically in those situations — when to fight, when to be compassionate, and sometimes (just sometimes), when to shut the hell up. Rather than hold onto these things like a cancer, I choose to acknowledge them and move on, devoid of the bitterness and spite I see being thrown at a collection of 365 days.

The change to 2017 isn’t magically going to fix anything; at least, not in your life — you need to affect that yourself.

If all we throw out into the world is judgment, negativity and an unwillingness to understand one another, we shouldn’t be surprised with what’s happening all around us.

Unhappy with this past year? The answer is simple to make next year a better one. Stop fighting with one another. Stop immediately writing someone off because of a simple difference of opinion. Work to better understand those around you and try to make this world a better place if you’re so sincerely sick of it.

Take a breath and go and play a video game or something.