What is your Christmas wish?

If you could have a wish granted for Christmas, what would it be?

I'm sure what we wish for for Christmas is affected by our personal circumstances. If a relative is sick you might wish for their recovery. If you are sick you might wish for your recovery.

Who asks you and where you are asked might also influence your answer. If you were competing in a beauty competition, you might wish for world peace.

I'm so lucky. I have so much. Health, wealth and often happiness. Of course we make our luck and I have worked really hard to achieve what I have. And I hope I am grateful for the simple things like my health. A friend was recently in an accident and at worst may never recover, at best could take a year. Things like that make me think. I hope I appreciate my health in more ordinary times.

Of course unless you're mother Theresa, we probably wish for something that affects us personally. I could wish for some more luck in finding the right people to hire next year. I could wish for continued growth in my client business. I could wish for success for the next step in my studies. I could wish for success with a relationship. Sure I wish for all of those things.

But it will all mean nothing if South Africa does not turn the corner in its fight against crime. There are so many positives for our country at present. The World Cup and the infrastructure build. The new competition in our politics. The relatively healthy state of our economy. Our fantastic rugby and cricketing success.

But if we continue to live under threat and lose people to crime, it will all ebb away. Earlier this year I was presenting to one of my client's boards in Toronto. News came in that one of their South African employee's families had been held up in their house. The shock and anger of the Canadians was palpable. It is one of the reasons they are investing in new opportunities outside of South Africa. Crime costs us investment, skills and lives. I wish that we turn the corner in 2009.