By now, all the jokes about 2016 have been beaten to the ground, but only because a lot of it is true—this year does seem to be cursed to all hell. Evil has taken over government, tragedy has struck humanity in many different ways, and a lot of our favorite old people have passed away. Today, we all woke up to the news that our favorite princess and general in the whole universe, Carrie Fisher, has passed away after suffering cardiac arrest a few days earlier.

There are many tributes all across the internet now about the person most famously known as Star Wars‘ Princess Leia. 60 is still way too young an age to die, but considering what she’s been through in her life, you’d have to begrudgingly understand it. Going through drug addiction and mental illness will inevitably take a chunk out of most people’s life expectancy (only a few vampires like Keith Richards can survive it).

And it’s from those hardships in her life we draw the most important lessons Carrie’s given us: take care of yourself if and when you know you’re going through some problems, don’t let your problems define who you are, and do the things you’ve always wanted to do in spite of them. And that’s on top of the encouragement she gave girls everywhere as Princess Leia.

[pull_quote]”Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” —Carrie Fisher[/pull_quote]

It feels like the world is out to get us—our generation, the one that’s just getting into adulthood and a real world that’s looking more terrible than ever—and there’s a lot of mental health issues out to ruin this wonderful generation. If we can only remember Carrie Fisher for one thing, it’s got to be that; her bits of wisdom is what we need to keep telling ourselves, no matter how hard it is to keep going. They’re not gonna beat us down to the ground.

So thank you for fighting, Carrie—we’re not sure if you were intending to, but maybe the “A New Hope” tagline was really in reference to you. Thanks for all the childhood memories, too.

From a grateful universe.

Photo from Don’t Hate the Geek