Tense times

The New Year’s festivities are already forgotten, and Carnival celebrations are already ongoing in many parts of the world, still this is a period of great tensions in a lot of places, even discounting the areas where wars, famine, genocides and ethnic clashes are a daily affair.

Italy, the country of “la dolce vita”, is struggling to create a new administration since it just lost again its last shaky (60th since WWII)) government after two weeks of outlandish behavior worthy of Goldoni’s “Commedia dell’Arte”.

Not too far away some of its neighbors, Spain and Serbia are dealing with new elections; France is investigating a large scale scandal in its financial market, and Kosovo, yearning to reach its independence after so many years of struggles, is making everyone else nervous since this outcome will have a great impact also on other countries under the hegemony of the great powers.

In the U.S., across the Atlantic, the presidential campaign is heating up, while the weaker dollar and the yo-yoing of the securities market and recession fears produce their own share of stressfulness daily.

It behooves all of us, therefore, to seek some of the good things that are happening, and can take place in life, but that are not as evident as what is touted daily in the media for the sake of sensationalism and financial rewards. Each one of us has the power to find a happy medium, and to contribute his/her little share of good into today’s great, immense, global society for the benefit of tomorrow. Thus, with some retrospection, among the usual good intentions for the new year let’s include some positive efforts, not only for ourselves, but also for everyone else’s betterment.