Dear Friends, wish you all a Happy New Year 2017!
Let this year bring new hopes, new opportunities and new joys to every one of you. May the mistakes of the past year become the lessons of this one, and may every ending you faced turn out to be a door.
Here's to twelve new chapters and three hundred sixty-five new chances. Happy New Year!
Midnight, Dubai style
Few cities welcome a new year like Dubai. As the clock approaches twelve, the whole city tilts towards the Burj Khalifa, where fireworks and light displays cascade down the world's tallest building while the fountains below dance to the countdown. The Palm, the beaches of JBR and Global Village stage their own spectacles, and for a few minutes the desert sky becomes the brightest place on earth. If you ever attend, claim your spot hours early — half the city has the same idea.
Many calendars, many midnights
One of the joys of living in a crossroads city is discovering how many new years there are. The Gregorian January 1 is only the beginning: spring brings Nowruz for Persian friends and Vishu and Puthandu for Keralites and Tamilians; Diwali season opens new account books across India; the Islamic new year arrives with Muharram; and East Asian communities welcome the Lunar New Year with red envelopes and lion dances. Each tradition makes the same beautiful claim — that time can begin again.
On resolutions
Most resolutions fail by February, and the reason is usually size: we resolve to become different people rather than to do one thing differently. The alternative that seems to work is almost embarrassingly small — read ten minutes a night, walk after dinner, call your parents every Friday. A year is simply three hundred sixty-five days of compound interest; choose the habit small enough to survive January, and let the year do the multiplying.
The wish that never changes
Whatever this year has planned for you, may you meet it with health, good company and curiosity. The greetings on this journal — from Christmas to Eid — all reduce to the same sentence: may the coming days be kinder than the ones behind you. Happy New Year, always.
