2016 isn't going to end anytime soon.

Technically, the "working" year ends on December 20th. It's the day for paying the 13th-month salary, for "secret Santa" at the company, for many to leave work and hit the road (heading to the coast, in most cases), in short, it's the day when Brazil plunges into a celebration that lasts about two weeks until the year ends.

We measure the passage of time using the Gregorian calendar, promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and immediately adopted by Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and subsequently by all Western countries. This formula prioritizes the belief in temporal cycles.

Dividing time into weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia serves to create cycles to be completed, allowing people to leave behind what was not positive or to define periods that will be missed.

Closing cycles is a human need, for better or for worse. And for the better, the change of cycle ignites in us the hope of better days.

In this respect, we have reached the end of what was undoubtedly the worst year in this country's recent history – and when we speak of "recent history," we are referring to the period of Brazilian redemocratization, a way of encompassing the dark period that Brazil lived through for twenty-one long years.

2016, the cursed year, the year of the coup, the year the crisis consolidated, the year in which workers' rights and policies to rescue the poor and destitute began to be abandoned, the year of arbitrary actions against professionals in countless fields, summarily dismissed from public service simply for their political opinions...

For those gullible people who believed the coup-mongering rhetoric that throwing 54 million votes in the trash would magically fix the economy, the reality check is proving brutal.

The fact is that, in 2016, the economic crisis crystallized from the dead end that the political crisis had reached. Without a solution to the political crisis, there will be no solution to the economic crisis simply because investors can no longer be sure who will be governing the country a year from now, and even if a government re-elected by the people will be able to implement its policies, since, in Brazil, presidents are easily overthrown by street protests and waves of defamation.

This is the drama caused by the crisis. And this situation solidified in 2016. The parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff turned Brazil into an unpredictable country, where investing becomes a risky endeavor since the rules of the game have become volatile due to pressure groups that are influential today and will be nothing tomorrow.

2016 isn't going to end anytime soon. To close out this tragic year, it would be necessary to elect a new government and a new Congress, just to begin the charade.

The Judiciary also needs to be reformed, as does the Public Prosecutor's Office, because they are riddled with irresponsible people capable of paralyzing a nation to satisfy their own political idiosyncrasies or the political interests of large corporate media groups.

The popular sentiment regarding the 2018 elections, as revealed by opinion polls, does little to help bring this fateful year to a close. Despite the left being the overwhelming favorite in the next presidential election, the leading candidates are involved in corruption investigations.

The way these accusations are made and spread long before any conclusion to the investigation plunges the economy into a perpetual state of waiting, uncertain about what may or may not happen depending on who the candidates are.

And what's worse: this political and electoral scenario greatly favors the emergence of some rogue who can exploit the recklessness of the masses, fueled by the economic crisis, uncertainty, and fear of the future.

The punitive conclave that installed this reverse "French Revolution," in which the rich rise up against the poor, needs to understand that Brazil needs time to breathe and establish a political pact in the interest of all. This is the very first step to ending 2016.

The next steps will be the election of a government and a Congress of unquestionable legitimacy, and the modification of oversight bodies such as the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Police, etc., so that they stop the partisan and ideological political activity that they have been shamelessly displaying.

How long will it take for all of this to happen? If you ask me, I'll say it's a job that might take a decade. Many of us may not even be in this universe when it all occurs. Unless someone manages to instill a drop of common sense into this psychotic right wing that's committing suicide without knowing it.