In case you were wondering, Alaska is already at the bottom of the trash can. Hawaii's cool though, it can stay.

See, I thought I was a pessimist before. I had already acknowledged 2016 was a rough year. I even wrote a list of television shows to watch to help forget the world was falling apart. But even that was optimistic. Television can't help us now.

It was really two events that occurred concurrently this past November that brought on this change in perspective.

The first thing that happened in November was I started working in retail. Closing the store after a busy retail day and observing the disaster left by customers too lazy to clean up after themselves really hammered home my growing realization that people are terrible. And don't get me started on customer service.

The second event should be obvious. There was an election that happened that was... kind of a big deal.

Before the election, I believed that despite its many (MANY) mistakes, America has been on a forward, progressive path. It gets better. Really though, the only reason I could've believed this, the only reason I was shocked by the results of this election, is privilege. I've always lived in liberal, metropolitan areas and have been protected by my geographic and economic bubble. I've been sheltered from the realities facing many people throughout the country.

My experience is one many millennials can relate with. We were the generation that came of age with the election of America's first black president. We gained our liberal arts degrees with classes taught by liberal professors in liberal universities. We carved out our own progressive spaces on the internet, echo chambers that, it turns out, aren't representative of all voters. Like many millennials, I had never voted for a losing presidential candidate, although unlike many millennials, I had actually voted (no, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?).

This election was a wake up call, intellectually, but I just wanted to go back to sleep. The results of the election only made me feel more powerless. What's the point of working towards a better future if all the work of the past eight years can be so easily rewritten by a relatively small percentage of people?

With the choice between fight or flight I always seem to chose to play dead instead. This is probably another reaction allowed only by my privilege.

So, on the eve of the inauguration and in the face of this realization that we as Americans and also as humans are even more trash than I had thought, what do we do about it? What can we do about it? No seriously, I'm really asking, because I have no idea. All I know is my response, both when I turned to television earlier last year and when I immediately wanted to disengage again after the election, is definitely the wrong one.