The Mercury and to all who may read this….

Of course I want you to have a “happy” new year. What exactly do I mean?

• May you find authentic inclusion with a group of caring friends.

• May you enjoy significant connection and derive mutual satisfaction with members of your immediate and extended family and family of choice.

• May you have meaningful work, work that respectfully uses your talents, strengths and imagination.

• May your capacity for humor enrich those whom you love and bring joy.

• May you discover new and wonderful things about yourself and others despite your years of experience.

• May regret over past failures provide you with healthy awareness rather than weigh you down.

• May you be part of the solution and not part of the problem in matters large and small.

• May you become more skillful in defining your boundaries and therefore more able to love your friends, family, colleagues, strangers and foes.

• May you resist urges, subtle or gross — all of which may be socially acceptable — to exploit others to accomplish your personal or professional goals.

• May you do no harm and may no harm be done to you.

• May we be agents of peace.

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The Mercury is one of South Africa’s longest running weekday morning newspapers. It is published in KZN, a province of South Africa.

I have enjoyed the privilege of writing daily for this newspaper since March 21, 2001. This affords me the unusual joy of occasionally being able to surprise friends. Pictured below is a couple whom I married in Prague (earlier this year). A few days before the wedding I discovered they were going South Africa for their honeymoon. Here they are reading a welcome column in The Mercury while in Umhlanga.