Anyone following world news outlets over the past few days could not help but think about the world’s contradictions.

As millions were preparing to celebrate and eventually revelled as the world moved in between 2023 and 2024, other millions were experiencing the plight of war as belligerence continued in Ukraine and the Middle East, and not only there.

And as if this man-made destruction was not enough, the first day of the New Year also brought with it strong earthquakes in Japan with tsunami warnings – later downgraded – and the devastation that such incidents can bring.

The different time zones the world is divided into means that every hour there is some country, some people who are making the step away from the old year into the new year. In many nations, a fireworks spectacle ushered in 2024 with a sky filled will colour as thousands watched from the sidelines and millions more followed from their homes.

It started off with New Zealand, followed by Australia and, later, Asian countries were followed by Europe and, lastly, the Americas.

But why do people celebrate the start of a New Year? The simplest answer is hope – the hope that the New Year will be better than the previous one. Those who had a bad year nurture some form of optimism that the start of January will bring better times; those who had a good year will believe that they are on the right track and look forward to a repetition.

But, then, there are many more for whom 31 December and 1 January were just two normal days in which their lives was continuously under threat as war raged on. The end of 2023 and the start of 2024 did not stop the fighting, and given what is being said, it is highly unlikely that we will see the hostilities stop anytime soon. In spite of all the diplomatic efforts that are taking place, the war in the Ukraine and the Middle East is set to continue in the months to come.

In February, it will be two years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine took place, and on Sunday it will be the third month since the war in the Middle East started. There are then other pockets of unrest, not least in the Red Sea where cargo ships have become a target of Houthi rebels which are disrupting the flow of transportation. Needless to say, all this is having a negative effect on trade and commerce and it will not be long before the effect of all this will start to be felt by consumers.

One other contradiction that always emerges at this time of the year is the difference between people who are living the good life and the others who do not share such affluence and whose target is to have enough food and water with which to survive the day. While millions were partying at midnight last Sunday, there were many more millions who had to make do with a handful of rice and a cup of dirty water.

Such is the world of contrasts that we live in today.