To me, and to many like me, all babies are beautiful irrespective of the place, or the circumstances of their birth - they could be born in a palace or a hut; in a private hospital or a manger; through rich parents or vagrants; in chilly winter or steaming summer for all I care. These wonders of nature are in their repose, incredibly fascinating and beautiful. I could look at a sleeping baby forever. There is a peace and a serenity in a sleeping baby as it curls up on its bed that is out of this world. Because, really, babies at that stage of life, are in their own world, oblivious to the world around them - the insecurity in their country, the turmoil in Iran and elsewhere - including the everyday cares and worries of their parents. Theirs is a peace that adults long for but which the pressures of the world have denied or which many have traded for position and wealth. It is a serenity that is ethereal, one that transcends the environment. It is deep and restorative and I sometimes wonder what I have traded this kind of peace for. Certainly not wealth.

It is also a wonder for me that as minuscule as a baby is in its tiny bed, all the features in its perfect limbs and organs, which would make it function in the outside world are already formed, literally, if not figuratively. I often look at that tiny baby, that cynosure of everyone in the room, or indeed the house, and wonder what it might become later in life. That is the figurative dimension. That is when the circumstances of birth, the glass ceilings that come from being born black or poor or female or from a particular tribe or country begin to play out. One however, always expects that the scion of successful parents would follow the parents’ footstep into success while the child of a vagrant would somehow find it difficult to transcend its circumstances to become a successful and responsible citizen. But expectations and wishes alone would not do it, just as circumstances of birth alone would not account for what a child became in life. Destiny plays its own part – for some of us who believe in destiny. Location plays its own part. Opportunity plays its own part. But the greatest part is played by attitude and aptitude working together. But for now, that sleeping baby, that little wonder of creation nestling in the warmth of its tiny cot, has to grow and survive to take its destiny in its hands. It has to be moulded before it can mould its own future. It needs the nurturing hands of parents and guardians for that.

A New Year is like that sleeping baby. It is latent; it is dormant. And it is at inception, full of possibilities. But it needs moulding. It needs nurturing hands to make it fulfill some of its possibilities. It is the wish and perhaps the expectation of everyone that their New Year would be better than the previous one. But wishes alone would not do it. Only clarity. People have to be clear about what they want and intentional about how to achieve it. A new year offers a blank cheque to just about everyone – rich, poor, healthy, sick. What is filled in the cheque makes the difference. How it is cashed makes a difference. To make this difference lasting or even possible, one must realise that life itself is a continuum. Life, like the growth of a baby, is so gradual that it is imperceptible to the human eye – one country’s midnight is another country’s morning for example. The calendar might change and the human attachments to the calendar might be altered. But not nature. Not the things that are intrinsic. Not the things that really matter. These evolve or devolve along their set pattern – much like the movement of the sun - until the pattern is interfered with. A leaking roof for example, will not repair itself overnight simply because it is a New Year. A persistent cough will not heal itself just because it is a new day. Just as a new, beautiful baby will not grow into a responsible adult without intentional inputs, a new year will not become successful by itself without deliberate efforts. Otherwise, it will continue second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day, in the imperceptible but definite course that each individual has deliberately or unwittingly set for it. Like Newton’s first law of motion - for those who are science lovers – a force has to be present before a body is moved, or its course altered.

The point in all of this is that a New Year is more of a mindset than a calendar contraption. Your New Year starts when you are willing to move away from a comfortable but unproductive past to embracing a challenging but uncertain future. It starts the minute you look at your strengths and weaknesses and decide to do something about them. It starts when you stop the blame game and decide to take charge of your life. It starts when you discard, like an old rag, the negative approach to your country and your place in it and imbibe a positivity that gives you a new energy. In other words, your New Year starts when you look at the balance sheet of your life and decide to move debits into credits – credits being the place you wish to be and debits being the things dragging you back. Your New Year is your epiphany. It is your eureka moment. It is your ‘enough is enough’ moment. It starts when you are mentally and psychologically ready for it. It can start now. It can start in June, or whenever. Or it might never start. The ultimate choice, the deciding factor, like many things in life, is within you.

Happy New Year to the willing; to those who have made a decision to turn the page. Or in a more GEN Z parlance, flip the switch. Wishing you more exciting discoveries as your New Year unfolds.

• Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com