There is a general sense that 2016 was brutal, although perceptions may vary depending on who you are and where you live.
Prince, David Bowie...and in its last moments, 2016 swung the scythe once more for good measure to claim pop superstar George Michael.
2016 was also a year of political upheaval. The Brexit vote in the UK, largely prosecuted as a referendum on immigration, was followed by open manifestations of racial hatred. Similarly, in the US, President-elect Donald Trump earned victory on the back of seething fear, uncertainty and racism resident in a swathe of "forgotten" Americans.
Here at home, we had enough on our plates to contend with. Economic decline continued with rising unemployment in several sectors.
The Central Statistical Office (CSO) estimated more than 5,000 people lost their jobs in the second quarter of 2016. That's just the second quarter; what about the rest of the year! Media houses scrambled to report on each other's job cuts. In the business community, many complained of meagre sales and worried how they would stay afloat in the first quarter of 2017 without the traditional lifeline of profligate Christmas spending.
The picture was equally grim in the tourism sector. Even as the Caribbean Tourism Organisation boasted of healthy tourist arrival figures across several regional destinations, this country's experience was different. Local industry players sounded a desperation call, indicating that anaemic arrivals have pushed tour operators, guesthouses and hotels into crisis mode.
In the absence of meaningful government strategies to address the shortfall in foreign exchange earnings, our economy has the look and feel of autopilot mode.
So what do the quatrains have in store for T&T in 2017? It's likely to be more of the same as there as little indication from our leadership and the wider community that it was anything other than business as usual over the past 12 months.
Assuming we can throw off our predilection for crab-in-barrel behaviour and can band together to exploit global opportunities, we just might have a fighting chance. 2017 demands a pooling of resources and intellects to access foreign markets for our products and services.
The option of marking time is off the table. Our private sector will find it increasingly difficult to scrape together foreign exchange to support their import-and-sell-onomics. Additionally, consumers buffeted by mounting job losses and economic uncertainty will be ever more reticent to continue funnelling their dollars into the retail pit.
Tourism is just one of several sectors ripe for a reboot. Our tourism product remains one of the most unique in the world; it's a mix of tropical island aesthetics, with eco-attractions and riveting heritage. It's time tourism players function more like an interest group than a lobby group.
Industry actors, working together, can build an outreach strategy comprised of blogs, videos, email marketing, special deals and visitor rewards. Today's technology allows us to creatively market our destination to travellers across the globe in a more efficient and cost effective manner. Travellers go online in search of potential vacation spots. We must do everything possible to make sure this country is at the other end of their google searches, and not for the wrong reasons!
A tourism interest group using technology to keep pace with global trends can learn from other nations who are getting their destination marketing right. Working together, hoteliers, tour operators, and guesthouse owners can build websites which are regularly fed content selling this country as the perfect destination for the overworked office hack with the heart of an adventurer. A website with anything less than fresh videos and blogs telling the story of T&T is not a website but a gravesite.
For people whose fortunes rise and fall on tourist arrivals, any business that sits back and waits on the government to "intervene" might not survive 2017.
Similarly, producers of uniquely Caribbean products, whether they be pepper sauces, cocoa products or artisan soaps should look beyond our shores far more aggressively. Such artisans could organise themselves into a co-operative whose principle mission would be marketing their products in countries where there is growing demand for exotic, tropical fare with an interesting back story.
The days of skating with product label with phone number and address slapped onto a jar are long gone. Adoption of technology can be onerous for some, but a blog or a website is the unavoidable calling card of today.
Also, as a unified body, local producers can share information about requirements for foreign market accession and collectively invest in marketing campaigns that would benefit them all.
Whether or not T&T prevails in 2017 depends largely on our willingness to embrace all of the tools at our disposal to access opportunities in the wider world.
If any of what you have read here sounds like an echo, that's perhaps because I have been writing about these issues for several years.
It is very troubling that as a nation, we continue to wait for the train we know, while several others pass us by, carrying the rest of the world with them.