Just like any other year, things aren’t going to magically change for the better just because the Gregorian calendar has come back to January. Even if 2016 had its good and bad events like every year, they don’t go away with the Times Square Ball Drop. But I’m sure that if we take the right steps into kicking off the New Year right, that’ll be the only ball we’ll drop.

One recommendation that I can make to starting off the New Year right is redefining your determination. It’s been a common tradition here in the states to make resolutions for the New Year, but more than likely, that resolution gets broken within the first month. And if you’re making a resolution that’s not easily broken, it’s most likely not much of a resolution, if there’s no challenge to it. I’m not here to tell you to throw away everything of your old life and reconstruct yourself from the ground up. However, truly bettering yourself takes time, and more importantly, conscious effort. What that also means is legitimately acting on it. This is definitely more personal to me; it’s one thing to be able to identify an issue and get upset about where it’s wrong. While admitting there is a problem and being able to identify it is crucial, that’s not the end of your work. Just like the idiom that gets repeated time and time again, “Actions speak louder than words.” You can say that you’re going to exercise more, study harder, work better, etc. But, until you intertwine what you think with what you do, you won’t be getting far.

Now that there might be some spark of inspiration, it’s important to act on it in productive ways at all times. It’s really easy to better oneself in the mindset of a positive goal. However, there’s a journey along the way that you have to take before you reach your destination. More than likely, that’s going to be a bumpy ride. That was definitely a harder aspect for me to grasp last year. It was easy for me to be able to highlight important issues and what’s wrong with them. Various legal cases that have had contrasting results, based on the victim’s race. The nuances that are behind current politics, in that electoral decisions are not to simply side with just a part of your choice. Even with decreasing credibility in news sources. Having more news sources isn’t the issue, but having more of them become particularly biased to where they’re willing to skew information for their own agendas is rather sly. For this issue in particular, you can also blame this on readers who get their news from social media sources, where you can basically cater to everything you absolutely agree with and see nothing you need to think twice about. Fact checking is crucial, research is necessary to be able to further understand the depth of some issues—as most aren’t just going to be a “he said, she said” situation.
Stepping outside of the dainty world of politics for a minute, what I wanted to highlight was to have a more inquisitive mindset. It’s what particularly drives the world of science and what really gives us the drive to further educate ourselves. Accepting things at face value are part of the reason history tends to repeat itself—could also be the reason why so many people got their news from Facebook. But even in the midst of horrible events that occur on a daily basis, unjust prosecutions that still occur to this day that could take years to reform, we still need to keep a positive outlook on this, if not a level head.

It’s imperative to highlight outstanding issues and be able to mull it over. It’s denying this sort of thought process that leads to intellectual hesitation, especially for important discussions like mental health, our judicial system, skyrocketing inflation in our economy. But with the curiosity to explore these issues and the nuances that surround them also comes the confidence to be able to speak out about it. I know that more than plenty of us are defying the stereotype of “lazy, entitled millennials” as we’re making further strides in technological innovations, critical analyses of media and even entertainment to look back on. I’m so proud of our generation for simply pushing ourselves forward, not just sociologically but intellectually. But one thing that we need for ourselves is that optimism to be able to act upon it. I’ve heard of plenty of ways that our generation has been discredited, such as being the “participation award” generation—that we need instant gratification to function. For one, this generation isn’t the only one to have lazy people, entitlement, those who do indeed need that instant gratification. While we do have people like that in our generation, so did every other one before us. It’s as simple as any other argument to discredit a certain type of people. We have good and bad people of every race, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and whatever other social confine that you can categorize people in. A very crucial note on this is that a person’s personality can be shaped by their culture, but that culture still does not define them. Even so, a more important note on top of that is that we need to be able to look optimistically into one another. Everyone of us is capable of so much, and what’s incredible to think is that the innovators of any generation cultivate a life around them don’t even necessarily have to be smarter than those around them. It’s just how they’re able to utilize their knowledge into productivity; like a conversion of energy.

If I can speak of anyone, I know I can speak for myself when I say that it’s easy to get discouraged, upset or depressed over anything negative that happened. It felt like a lot of 2016 was that way, and why it’s gotten such a bad rap. But it’s not the time that defines what happens, but what happens that will define the time. We have the power to make extraordinary changes to and for this planet. We’re getting to ages where we’re taking control of our own lives, and through that, can take control of the world we live in. Change starts with us, though. As we continue to live our lives, we’re learning more each and every single day, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. Let’s take our knowledge, newfound and long processed, and use it to cultivate a better world around us. And with that, I hope you guys had a good first week of 2017.