I have not been able to write in your newspaper since summer, as I was required to direct my energies to my studies and exams during the autumn months. However, the coming of a New Year not only gives me an opportunity to wish everyone joyful prospects for 2012 but also allows me to return to writing to your paper, which provides distinct pleasures of its very own.

I am fairly convinced that, as any other year, it will bring its ups and downs and that, God willing, it will pass into the annals of history as the ones that went before it. What would probably not be the same are our very own selves as we have passed through the sieve of experience and history. May we use these experiences to grow in peace and grace and get to know ourselves more as we march towards our own personal fulfilments, whatever they may constitute. My resolutions for the New Year are many, but one which stands out is the effort to nurture the notion that we are not alone in this world and that unless we fathom the heights of solidarity we cannot realise the depths of ourselves and risk falling into the clutches of existentialist narcism.

One issue currently in the public eye is the situation in our Parliament. Politics is a team game. It requires all the members of a team to pull together in order to achieve a desirable outcome. If some action results in the scoring of own goals, then whatever the motive or circumstances – even if laudable – of the individual concerned, it will result in a negative outcome for that team. Even if certain issues appear right on paper and, one hopes, are well intentioned, the way one does things is also important. The right arguments have to be addressed from the right side of the fence, or else they are self-defeating. As I said in my first paragraph, we only find ourselves when we seek the common good. My experience is that some politicians tend to have an overblown opinion of themselves and their capabilities, and it would be a good idea to keep their egos in check.

The recent past should have taught us the ravages that are brought upon a nation by misguided self-aggrandisement and self-promotion. We do not need to go back to those times but must move ahead, keeping the real common good always in sight. The real desire of every politician should be to serve the nation, full stop. The real fate of every politician is ultimately to fail. One ought to remember that, in the end, nearly every politician is ultimately thrown out of office! What remains, as in the passing of every year, are the experiences and pains of growing! It is to be hoped that the experiences will be good for everyone involved, not bad, but it ultimately depends on the choices each and every one of us makes in life!

I believe that our Parliament should sit down together and work out ways and means of lessening the possibility of one member holding a whole party and country hostage to a personal whim. Although it can never be avoided completely, there are ways of reducing this possibility. I always believed that our Parliament is too small for the work that its members are expected to carry out, and I speak from personal experience. As a part-timer, you are expected to abandon your occupation for the good of the country and travel abroad – sometimes four or five times a month. The more time that passes with the present set up, the more it will become a Parliament for rich people alone, as lower paid individuals will literally not be able to afford to become members. A serious Parliament definitely needs adequately paid full-time members, especially with our country now a member of the EU. I also envisage parliamentary elections where the districts are bigger than they are at present but have a greater number of MPs – maybe an 11-district set up, each electing seven members to give 77 members in total.

I hope that everyone will see that seeking the common interest will result in mutual benefit. Following strictly personal interests in public affairs, and even in our everyday life, leads to a satisfaction that is often dry and short-lived, whilst we ourselves seek to live forever and therefore ought to seek pleasures that are consonant with that reality!