It seems like we're living through the worst year of our lives.
Again.
After all, with a global pandemic, a fractured economy, a divisive election, the death of George Floyd, urban unrest, racial tensions, wildfires, even murder hornets, who can dispute that 2020 has been rotten?
If not the worst year ever, it's the worst going back to at least since … 2016.
That's the year when we were distraught over another bitter presidential election, the Syrian refugee crisis, the Orlando nightclub shooting, the deaths of Prince, David Bowie, Philando Castile, Carrie Fisher, not to mention another batch of pestilent insects, Zika virus mosquitoes.
It was the sort of year that launched a raft of year-end thumbsucker articles and op-ed pieces with titles like "16 reasons why 2016 was the worst year ever," "2016: Worst. Year. Ever?" "Why 2016 Seemed Like the Worst Year Ever."
Well, here we go again.
As much as we might complain that 2020 is really the worst year, in the long scheme of human suffering over the ages, we ain't seen nothing.