Have you made your New Year resolutions yet? If you haven?t (shame on you!), quick, get a pen and paper and start writing. Not just one. Make a whole list. Scribble away. Scribble every good thing you can think of to make you a better person so you can bring forth the smiles of others. And most importantly - even if people will keep telling you resolutions are made never to be kept, stick to them! God knows how much in need of good resolutions the world is?

On top of my list is the resolution to make an effort not to lose my temper as easily as I usually do and be nicer to people. Then I woke up on1st January and went to work. I had bought a bottle of soft drink for a colleague on my way to work and he asked me to put it in the fridge for him. Which I did. When, a few hours later, he went to get his drink, he couldn?t find it. So I went to retrieve it for him. I got to the fridge, opened it and an empty shelf stared at me. I was positive I put it there. Another colleague stated the obvious as I stood there disbelieving, ?Someone must have stolen it.? ?What? People steal on New Year?s day?? I shouted, naively angry. ?People steal everyday,? replied my colleague, amused by my foolishness.

You see? You see how easy it is to break good resolutions? All because people will always fall short of the standards you set for yourself. That?s the way the world is made. We will spend countless days being shocked, grieved, and angry at things that happen around us.

Does this mean we should stop aiming high, that we should give up? That we should stop trying? The day we lose this capacity to get angry will be the day when all hope for humanity is lost. But thankfully we?re not there yet. So keep writing those resolutions!

As I was reading through the New Year wishes of foreign heads of state, my attention was drawn to an unusual title for a New Year wish. The heading read ?Third World?, the headline to the article said ?East African leaders worry over food shortages?.

I paused, frozen. Reality check. To each country its reality, I suppose.

As I welcomed the New Year I was not worried. Instead I was cheering away like a mad woman. A day later, it struck me how others are not cheering because they have to worry about their own survival. What we can or cannot do about it is another debate, which I do not propose to get into at this point in time.

The point I am trying to make is that we are surrounded by injustices, by dark and evil things, by poverty, by lives gone wrong, by heart-breaking things and bad people but we are also surrounded by beautiful things that smell of hope, redemption and decency. And by good people.

So if New Year resolutions are a great way to make us strive harder to make the world a slightly better place to live in, why not? Positive vibes are ultimately the only bridge between the good and the bad. And they?re tax-free! So let?s use and abuse until they make us lightheaded with hope for a better tomorrow. Not just for us but the world at large.

P. S. So how is that list coming along?