There are two kinds of people at New Year's - the oblivious and the cautious.

Continuing the journey of 'years'

Probably the same might be said on any day, but it becomes especially clear on the day after the night when mankind celebrates its accomplishment of staying alive for one more year.

You would think that a world and a life where just staying alive for another year is considered an accomplishment would not be much of a place. And indeed, for many people, it isn't.

Hunger, poverty, homelessness, torture, terrorism, war, disease - this world has plenty of all of them. You can't walk back over 2005 without stumbling over the victims strewn across the landscape.

So to look ahead into the future with unchecked optimism, you really have to be somewhat oblivious of the history not just of the last year, but of the last 5,000 years.

We humans do not have an easy task. To put it lightly, running a planet is almost as difficult as running a marathon. Most of us would not even want to try. The road is long and the refreshments are few and far between.

But on the other hand, if you take an overly cautious approach - if you try to be aware of every potential danger ahead, avoid every risk, and test every step - then you are running a marathon on a minefield, and what you will be doing mostly is standing still.

Somewhere between oblivious optimism and cautious pessimism is the necessary realism that makes 2006 doable - and will turn it into one more notch on most of our belts at the end of the coming year.

Yes, we will each face individual challenges - medical, financial, emotional - and yes there will be setbacks in the forward progress of the human spirit to a better day. We will lose some of our friends and loved ones. We will again be reminded of the preciousness of life by witnessing the brutality and inhumanity of those who do not know it is precious.

We will ask questions that have no answers, and demand answers to questions we have not even thought of yet. Before today is done, we will have forgotten half of the important lessons of the past year and will start learning them again.

Yes, we are partly oblivious to the great difficulty of life. We have to be - in order to move ahead into the unknown future. But there is also something energizing about the unknown, something alluring about possibility.

And so we leave behind the certainty of last year, with a "paid in full" stamp on its box of troubles, and step over the precipice of today into a clouded tomorrow where we just may find treasure and triumph.

In any case, with luck, and God's grace, we will all meet back here next year to share stories of laughter and loss, sadness and success. One more year on a journey of centuries.