It’s that time of year again. The time when everyone walks around chanting, ‘Happy New Year’ to everyone they meet. Sometimes, I join in and toss a greeting or two, mostly to people I know. But this year, I really don’t feel like it.
It just seems so hypocritical and insincere, this pro forma wish for happiness that you know is extremely unlikely. Rather than celebrate the arrival of 2026, I’d rather celebrate the limping exit of 2025. Despite being an age when time passes far faster than I prefer—or so it seems—I was happy to see the back of 2025, the year of global sadness.
The year just past was a year when many parts of Asia suffered horrendous flooding caused by climate change, which is fueled by human greed, ignorance, and a stubborn refusal by many to accept that climate change is not only real but also an existential problem.
Put another way, if we don’t do something about it, it will eventually kill us. Then there are the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, one with an aggressor who is demanding to be rewarded to stop his aggression, and the other in which the fighters on both sides are guilty of violating the rules of warfare.
In Africa, a continent beset by many ills, Sudan is enduring a violent upheaval that outside parties fuel, and the international community is wringing its hands and ignoring the suffering.
In the Western Hemisphere, we were—and are not without our travails, with a non-war in the Caribbean that could very well morph into a real war that will destabilize the region for a long time to come.
All of this is why I’m reluctant to wish anyone a happy New Year, because I think 2026 will be anything but happy. The old year limped off, leaving its troubles behind, and they’re likely to grow in the coming year and attract others. Bad things have a knack for doing that.
So, instead of wishing everyone a Happy New Year, I want to instead wish for a year of reflection, contemplation, and compromise. A year in which we stop doing the things we’re doing and consider alternatives.
We could start by taking climate change seriously and committing to addressing it. After that, we could, in the words of a song I recall from years ago—Give Peace a Chance.
Something to think about. | NWI
