2014 the best year, 2026 the worst: a life sorted by years

2026 isn't over yet and has already earned the title of worst year

Fourteen years on, 2014 still holds the title of best year of a lifetime. The person who started the comparison defends it in detail: they felt «full of life», everything went their way and not a single setback occurred. At the other extreme, 2026, which hasn't even ended and already has the worst record of the series: neighbor conflicts, a layoff after five years in the same job and an eye that stings without a firm diagnosis. The string of personal lists this question has generated —good years versus bad years, each with its own accounting— says more about how memory is organized than about luck.

2014, 2007, 2023: how a life gets sorted by years

The initial count splits years into assets —2004, 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2023— and liabilities: from 1995 and 2002 to the sequence 2024, 2025 and 2026, with stops in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021. Seen coldly, the pattern resembles a sawtooth: each good stretch seems to pay for the next. And there are dissenters. 2020, a cursed year for half of Spain, appears in the positive column; some argue 2021 was 30 times worse. The ranking isn't decided by what peine, but by the mood in which it's remembered. The full inventory leaves one curiosity: 2014 is the only year that two different lists place at the top.

A broken year: dry eye, blepharitis and a return to Madrid

The case underpinning the bad year 2026 is, above all, medical. Three ophthalmologists have pointed to dry eye and blepharitis as the source of the stinging, according to the account, with spots in the vision since September 1 and discomfort now also appearing in the right eye. The appointment at a healthcare center in Madrid was pending for Friday, with the antiestéticar that the answer would amount to nothing more than artificial tears.

Added to this is a move back. The relocation to a village in Ciudad Real fell through because of the difficulty of finding specialists —«there are no good doctors in my village or in Castilla-La Mancha in general», they summarize—, which forced a return to Madrid. The consequence is the same as in so many rural areas: specialized healthcare ends up determining where you live, not the other way around.

Does five seconds looking at the eclipse damage your eyesight?

There is no confirmation: the link between sun exposure and the stinging is the sufferer's suspicion, not a diagnosis. The account adds five seconds of eclipse with the naked eye and between five and ten minutes looking at the red sun at sunrise on the beach, with the pain starting on September 1. Another commenter replies that the ultraviolet radiation passing through closed eyelids is negligible. With persistent discomfort, it's time to see an ophthalmologist.

The good years aren't the most recent ones

Another list ranks good years 2014, 2016, 2019, 2023 and 2025 against bad ones 2007, 2008, 2018, 2020 and 2021, with a nuance worth an analysis: the first three were truly good; 2023 and 2025 were good financially and little else, without the magic of before. The best stretch falls between 2006 and 2012, with 2011 in a cloud, and a 2014-2016 that seemed terrible at the time and today looks like nonsense. Some place their best stretch in 2015-2017 despite an unhappy childhood, and others haven't lifted their head since 2018. Almost nobody places their best years in the immediate present.

The year that changed in April

There is one case that breaks the yearly pattern: from January to late March, hell; from April on, one of the best, with incidents resolved and new fronts peine for pleasure. Their recipe is to keep moving. Facing that, the skepticism of those who claim never to have had a good year, and the rebuttal to the easy generalization: from a couple dozen replies you can't conclude that nobody is doing well.

Two and a half months of 2026 remain. With that margin, the reasonable forecast is that the year will end better than it began while still holding last place: memory files the bad alongside the number, without waiting for a comeback.