The duality of life is undeniable. In its walks, we?ll find night and day; yin and yang; good and bad; male and female; right and left; to mention but a few.

Yet, life does not exist in black and white. It?s in palettes of hues and shades that life draws its flavour and beauty holding us from falling into extremes.

Likewise the New Year means more than wishes of happiness with one plain truth though: it is directly linked to the countdown of our very existence.

Whether we want it or not, we all have on the clock an average of 75 years. Each year, which passes, is a reminder of a cycle of seasons to be debited from our account! However, this very blunt and sad fact is transformed into a message of hope by the word ?new?.

The New Year is like a blank page onto which we all look forward to write a story which we hope will be happier than the one we wrote in previous years.

Like a unprocessed, fresh, natural and multi-floral bouquet, the New Year is diversely scented and wears the beauty of flowers as well as the threat of thorns.

Being fully natural, none of its attributes is to last forever, they are all ephemeral. We should therefore make the most out of the presence of the bouquet, enjoy its perfume and take care of it so that when we throw it away the seeds may sprout into new plants and bloom again.

While some of the components of the bouquet, be it flowers, thorns or leaves, are added throughout the year by destiny, many will be purchased by ourselves during those 365 days. It is therefore our duty to see to it that we buy the right products.

In doing so, we should never forget that some flowers are evergreen and invaluable but, as they are very discreet and often for free, we either deliberately choose not to add them to our bouquet or else we only pick and choose a few of them when other flowers come to wither earlier than expected. Then, our year is tinted with the scent of regrets.

Thorns will prick us at times because the bouquet of life is natural and nature is made of good and bad, but those thorns will hurt in different degrees, that?s where the diversity of life takes over. Remember though that no thorns last forever. One day or the other, time takes over. The beauty of the bouquet shows itself stronger.

The New Year carries indeed a perfume of hope, the hope of a life worth living. Each one of us is called to be a gardener of this earth. We are all different but none of us is worthless.

Given the right opportunity and strengthened by our experience acquired from the dead year, we all are capable of creating a nicer bouquet during the new cycle, according to our personal assets and skills. Yet we must bear in mind that mistakes we made in the previous year won?t be chased by firecrackers but by firm resolutions. The New Year gives us an opportunity to review and renew them. Although modernity is often decried, it gives us larger prospects to express ourselves and help us add our personal unique bouquet to the year to unfurl.

We all are called to contribute significantly to society, it?s no coincidence that Time magazine has conferred the title person of the year to YOU. If you read the December issue, you?ll find your face reflected in a computer screen printed on the cover of the magazine which rightly highlights: ?You control the information age.?

Yet no one can ever be the person of the year without others. People, the main ingredients in your success, as rightly pointed out by French rapper Kamini who achieved fame by posting his clip on the Internet. He said that the technology made the clip ?popular?. But behind that, emotionally speaking, are ?people?.

Why not share the flowers of love, peace, justice, harmony, tolerance, loyalty and cooperation with each other so that all can create worthy bouquets, which will make of 2007 an even more memorable year. A year where everyone is a winner one way or the other.

Very Happy New Year to you all.

This text is dedicated to the Sooben family, who lost the person of their years last Thursday. Clement grew flowers of love, faith, affection, friendship and generosity throughout his life. His family will undeniably miss him, though the seeds he sowed during his earthly passage are here to grow and remind them of his fragrance and eternal presence. May the Almighty have his soul and may his sweet and priceless memories together with the promise of resurrection soothe and heal their wound.