Global Q&A: ‘What is your New Year’s resolution for 2011?’

Paulia Alhuay, Lima, Peru.

For some, the New Year provides a wonderful opportunity to create and achieve certain goals starting with a clean slate, while others prefer to experience each day as special within itself. This is what Epoch Times reporters from Czech Republic to Colombia discovered when they asked locals: “What is your New Year’s resolution for 2011?”

Lima, Peru
Paulia Alhuay, 43, Obstetrician

My resolution for this New Year is to become an independent professional, and to be a better person. I also want to correct my faults and to learn to be more tolerant and communicative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eksjö, Sweden
Lennart Svensson, 56, Managing Director

This year I will not make any New Year’s resolutions. Some years, I make some. For instance, I stopped using snuff* and in another year I did not eat any candy at all. Last New Year’s promise I made, which my wife also shared, was not to eat a lot of cakes; we only eat them when we are guests or have guests, or once a month.

* In Sweden some people use snuff, a kind of moist powdered tobacco placed under the lip, as an alternative to smoking.

 

 

Islamabad Pakistan
Adeel Arshad, 24, Journalist

I do not follow the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions because I follow the Muslim calendar. To me, every day is a blessed day. It dawns with certainties, hopes, and optimistic indicators for the advent of a new era of light and delight. A year is not a separate unit, it is product of every day. … Hope always runs with us, it is enjoined by our Lord to always look forward to hopeful times. Making any resolution to reap worldly benefit is a message of despair as it awakens greediness, avarice, jealousy, and selfishness among us, and pits us against our fellow beings.

 

 

Slovakia, Bratislava
Martina Hricková, 32, Head of a Fast-food restaurant

New Year’s resolutions are like mini-goals. They are not that common for me, and they are usually related to everyday things like a successful outcome in my job, or are for enhancing some aspect of my life, where I am unsatisfied. Everyone would like to live a more healthy life, quit smoking, or earn more money. It is all about the decisions, which we can make any day, and not just on New Year.

 

 

Falticeni, Romania
Ionut Tiperciuc, 17, High-school Student

This year, I want to be a more diligent person in everything I do. So, I want to finish everything I start. I also want to be a more caring person, to really care about the people around me. For example, when they talk to me, I want to really listen to them and really think of them and what they say.

 

 

 

 

Medellin, Colombia
Fabio Florez Morales, 58, Business Administration

[My resolution is] to create a network of clients to expand sales,…[and] to provide environmental services and property taxes—developing a company that will endure and create jobs has been the goal of my life. I also hope to pass an exam in February to become registered as an expert on values. I also want to study English. …There are so many more things ... a lot. Here, the goals are mixed with dreams.

 

 

Santiago, Chile
Sergio Jiménez, 38, Engineer in Business Administration

I have so many wishes for 2011 … economic stability for my family, professional change for myself; that my children fulfill their duties, [and] that the persons I love achieve their goals. In terms of the goals for 2011, [I want] to live with my elder son, to buy an apartment for my children, [and] to find a new job.

 

 

 

Sunshine Coast, Australia
Geoffrey Crichton, 77, Retired Sales

Keep good health, and help others in need. Travel Australia. Improve my golf and bowls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madrid, Spain
Tomás Lorente Suárez, 27, Student

My wish for 2011 is health for my family and myself, and not having too many surprises. About the goals, I want to continue studying at an academic level, to aspire to greater stability both economically and personally.

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea, Manhattan, New York, U.S.A.
Julie Albert, 60, Unemployed

Not working. ... I don’t know if there’s a difference, as in ‘unemployed’ implies it’s not by choice and ‘not working’ might be by choice. What do you think?

I stopped doing that [working]. I don’t smoke or anything big anymore, I don’t need to lose weight. I’m going to try to read more.

Look for the Global Q&A column every week. Epoch Times correspondents interview people around the world to learn about their lives and perspectives on local and global realities. Next week’s global question: “How is 2011 so far?”