Welcome to the Facebook era.

This is the era where you no longer have to resort to your 2003 yearbook to get in a quick laugh about your braces, your acne or the hot pink cast on your arm. This is the era that disregards the ability to forget any birthday, any bad day or any big mistake. The new Facebook enables us to go back to the very first day of our membership and everyday after.

The new timeline layout, which is soon to become mandatory for all users, gives friends the ability to travel to any particular time or major event on another’s profile. This means an individual’s entire Facebook activity is exposed to whoever wishes to look, all privacy sanctions still apply. In an article by the Daily Mail, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg describes the new features as letting you “tell the whole story of your life on a single page.”

I know what a lot of you are thinking. You are probably thinking that Zuckerberg and his clones have finally gone too far. You are probably thinking that every nosey individual from eighth grade to present has officially received the ammunition to weasel into your personal life. 

You are probably thinking that events, wall post and pictures from five years ago should have to stay there. You are maybe even feeling like your privacy is being completely invaded.

I understand. I understand the amount of anxiety you will feel the moment your profile morphs into “the yearbook of you.”

The only thing is I cannot really say that I share your sentiments.

After thorough consideration of all of the reasons why I think this is a terrible, incredibly embarrassing idea, I have come to one conclusion.

Kudos, Zuckerberg.

What you guys are failing to come to grips with is that Facebook becoming something freakishly unfamiliar is no new concept. Shall we go back to October? We all posted statuses about our dissatisfaction with the “subscription” features of that news feed-like ticker, which appeared within another news feed serving no actual purpose aside from emphasizing redundancy. And guess what? Not one thing changed.

We forgot that it was different and foreign within a week. Our heated annoyance soon dissolved and we continued to surf, stalk and reel in new friends in the same cyber fashion we always have.

Zuckerberg, my hat goes off to you. He has us so wrapped around his ingenious Harvard-worthy index finger that he basically owns our free time until he decides to do the unthinkable–charge us.

Give it up friends, Zuckerberg wins. As soon as the clouds pass and we all realize that the Facebook logo is embedded in our hearts and minds, all will be well in the world and Zuckerberg will continue to sit back and count his billions.

So what our timelines will date back to our eighth grade formal? If you are that worried about the skeletons emerging from your middle school closets, I am afraid that you may have bigger problems. Take a deep breath, friends and let it finally sink in: this is Zuckerberg’s world, and we just log into it.