2016 has been pretty horrible, but it's not the worst year in history.

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I don't think anyone would argue that 2016 has been a pretty horrible year. I've had a lot of personal losses, as well as the over 130 celebrity deaths this year, and the many other horrible things that have happened this year. To say it's been a bad year is an understatement, but it most certainly isn't the worst year in history like some people are claiming. I'm sure if you asked Holocaust survivors they'd disagree, or if you could talk to slaves, or people who survived the depression, or basically anyone from the early 1900s or before. At one time the average life expectancy was 30 or younger, people died of diseases and various illnesses that are treatable now. The technology we have now didn't exist, and while technology comes with it's own set of issues, medically speaking it's pretty remarkable, and being able to have friends all over the world is pretty neat. People back then were too busy trying to survive to care about a dead gorilla. Our problem now is that we have so much readily available that we tend to forget about how far we have come or about how much we have to be thankful for. We have come so far, and yes we still have a long way to go, but that doesn't mean we can't be proud over all that we've accomplished. We are just so busy trying to focus on what separates us than what should bring us together. There's nothing wrong with grieving over those we've lost and trying to make things better, but we also need to realize how good we have it over all in comparison to our ancestors. I refuse to call this the worst year in history, it's not. It's a pretty horrible year, but as a whole things could still be worse and have been. I guess it depends on how you look at things and where in the world you live. We have new issues they didn't have back in the day with the internet and with weapons, but life expectancy is pretty great in comparison to what it was, and yeah things are hard at times, but at one time things were still worse in their own ways, and I think we need to try to be grateful for the good things in our life as we move forward. It would be too depressing if we just saw all of the bad and ignored all of the good. No matter how bad life is, there is usually at least one thing in your life to be grateful for, and there's usually someone out there who has it worse than you do. I guess that's how I'm going to choose to look at it.