It started with a bang and ended with a whimper. The decade cheekily known as the noughties is done and dusted, replaced by the far less fun-sounding "tens" (or more scarily, the "teens").
And what, if we are to allow ourselves a brief moment of introspection in between Facebook updates, can we take as salient lessons from the past 10 years?
First and foremost we should now know without a shadow of a doubt that committee-based decision-making is inherently flawed and doomed to fail.
In 2001 the World Trade Organisation's Doha negotiations failed to even finish due to regional in-fighting. Ditto the WTO Cancun conference in 2003, which successfully found no consensus whatsoever on any issue bar the relative merits of pool-side cocktails.
And then of course there was Copenhagen. Ah, Copenhagen - the place to where hundreds of people this year flew thousands of hours to eat truckloads of food and peruse forests of documents in order to save the planet from waste and damage.
"The committee," British public servant Sir Barnett Cocks once said, "is a cul-de-sac into which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."
Let us, then, dispense with them from here on in.
What else? We should now know that America doesn't know everything.
Yes, it is very big and very rich, and it does make some bang-up movies, but America is not particularly bright. It causes global recessions. It pisses off zealot religions. It arms its people for protection. It thinks that Oprah Winfrey must know a lot about weight loss. It barefacedly lies to justify the invasion of other countries. It thinks the moon might be a good place to live one day. It lets actors become politicians and then hopes they tell the truth.
No, we should now know that America is simply like that really popular kid who upon leaving high school amounts to very little. Other nations should no longer be looking over America's shoulder to copy its homework.
We should now know that the more we complicate food, the fatter we get. We should know that actually there are no shortcuts for a healthy diet and regular exercise. We should know that an excess of anything will likely kill us.
We should know that at the end of the day most powerful men simply can't help themselves. Catholicism didn't stop Mel Gibson. Public office didn't stop Bill Clinton. A spouse and sponsorship didn't stop Tiger Woods and a blow to the nose won't stop the Italian prime minister.
We should now know that the easier it is to stay in touch with people, the poorer the relationship.
Technology has driven friendship to the shallow end of the emotional pool. You can have 800 MSN friends and still be alone on Christmas morning.
We should know that human beings are equal parts self-destructive and constructive.
We both destroy and rebuild humanity every single day. We worship celebrities while revelling in their digressions. We champion leaders then wait for them to fall. We make resolutions that will never be realised. We get up. We fall down. We get up. And none of us really, not really, knows why.
And we love. Oh, how we love.
Here's to the next decade. See you there.
Carrie Cox is a journalist, author and mother who one day wants to finish a cup of coffee while it's still hot.
Email a friend