Here we are, with the start of another New Year just around the corner. Some skeptics say that it won’t be a happy one because 2014 will be exactly the same as 2013. But optimists say we are opening a new book, with blank pages, just waiting for you to write good things.
Despite repeated predictions of world-ending disasters by people yearning for a time when their enemies will be vanquished by a force of good in some liberating, apocalyptic manner, we’re still here.
We’re still a little more concerned with the doomsday clock maintained by officials of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Originally set at 7 minutes to midnight when it was created in 1947, at the onset of the Cold War, it currently points to 5 minutes before a nuclear doomsday. The closer it gets to midnight, the closer the Science and Security Board believes the world would be to global disaster.
We will have to wait unit Jan. 14 to see if the hands of the clock will move from their current 5 minutes to midnight.
The most recent time was set just about one year ago. Since then, the talks with Iran regarding its nuclear program have improved somewhat and North Korea is still working on a missile that could reach U.S. soil. Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons, was never really a sound ally of the United States. India, another country with nuclear weapons, is currently not speaking to U.S. officials over a rift involving the arrest and strip-search of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade for visa fraud and paying her housekeeper below the minimum wage but reporting otherwise.
We have little control over world affairs and, as citizens, our main influence comes in our power at the ballot box at election time. But, we can help ourselves by doing our part to be better people. We need to work harder to sustain what’s right and improve what’s wrong.
To guide our readers, in what has become a New Year’s tradition here at the Town and Country newspaper, we offer the following resolutions. They’re not a cure-all – they’re only words. You still need to provide the action. They are simple words that provide a powerful lesson and can be easily adapted to everyday life at home, school, work or even in the halls of local, state and federal government.
The person who penned this bit of wisdom is unknown to history, but the words have been around for decades. The good sense provided by them is timeless.
Place them in a prominent place and read them often.
Resolutions
No one will ever get out of this world alive. Resolve, therefore, to
maintain a reasonable sense of values.
Take care of yourself. Good health is everyone’s major source of
wealth. Without it, happiness is almost impossible.
Resolve to be cheerful and helpful. People will repay you in kind.
Avoid angry, abrasive persons. They are generally vengeful.
Avoid zealots. They are generally humorless.
Resolve to listen more and talk less. No one ever learned anything by talking.
Be wary of giving advice – wise men don’t need it, and fools won’t heed it.
Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged,
sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and wrong.
Sometime in life you will have been all of these.
Do not equate money with success. There are many successful
moneymakers who are miserable failures as human beings. What counts
most about success is how a person achieves it.
In closing, the staff at the Town and Country newspaper wishes all of our readers a safe, promising and happy New Year.