Expectations vs. Reality: 2017

You are sitting at home with only about three minutes until midnight; surrounded by your friends, family and possibly complete strangers with party hats perched on your heads and poppers between your fingertips.. a typical New Year’s setting, as many might say.

Usually, for my family, the new year would start off with reminiscing of the past year and thinking in our heads of hopes or goals for the one current. However, with the arrival of 2017, most of what everyone expected has not happened in the slightest.

For example, many of my family and neighbors believed that- with the arrival of Donald J. Trump into the White House- our economy would diminish to federal charcoal (ho, ho, ho; Santa thinks we’ve been a bad nation). Harsh and not very detailed, this view on the start of a new presidential and historical event was not at all close to what has gone on so far. He has not yet been admitted into office, but Presidential nominee Donald Trump seems to have been reviewing his previous propositions and making changes to them, as well as gaining advice from current president Barack Obama in a display of good future leadership and planning. It demonstrates that he will have a promising start in office, unlike what was currently believed.

Also, popular (2016) trends that were expected to die out with the flip of a calendar have not yet been claimed deceased. Such eyesores like the ‘dab,’ the ‘quan,’ and the ‘huh challenge’ still have been working their way into social media with the start of a new year, which is quite sad in an old-trend sort of way. Walking down the hallways of almost any school, one is sure to witness the crime of being ‘not hip with the kids’ committed multiple times during a common student’s school day. What many wonder is why haven’t these long forgotten memes and challenges been put aside for something fresh? Something more.. 2017..

Another display of how this year was thought to turn out in comparison to how it did, was the fact that not many of the people close to me believed we would have a white January. This, though clearly not as important as previous topics, was wrong on many levels. Even while factoring in the possibilities of global warming, thoughts on this month’s snowfall were quite wrong; January has been an even colder and more snow-dense month than December of 2016. Snowball-warning, anybody? ..I’ll go home.

I have only touched upon the tip of the iceberg when dealing with this matter. Multiple thoughts on how this year would start have been proven wrong with the minimum of one month into the new year. And, though I know that 2017 has only just arrived, that the U.S. has only just begun to take its first baby step into its 241 birthday; I can’t help but feel that as this year goes on, more surprises- big and small, good and bad- are on the way.