New Year’s resolutions are not something I often think about.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of room for change or that I don’t want anything or that I don’t have dreams for myself, others and the world at large.

Perhaps, it’s that I think the positive changes I would like to see can’t be summed up in a resolution. Maybe this ritual of making New Year’s resolutions seems trite when so many are broken before January is even over.

Change takes work. It takes time, diligence, will power and the acknowledgement it may not come on the first try.

That’s why I believe anyone who wants change needs to make it a lifetime endeavor. Even if you succeed with one desire, there will be more.

We humans are a work in progress just as is the world we inhabit. So, maybe everyone’s lifetime resolution should be to leave the world a better a place.

Yes, we will all have our own definition of better. But we only get one shot at this thing called life (at least as far as I know), so why not resolve to make it a better world while we are in it and for those who are left behind?

This isn’t a Jan. 1 kind of resolution, but an everyday commitment to do better, be better, think better, live better for myself, those I love, those I don’t know, for my community, the places I visit, and the places I’ll never set foot.

Happy New Year!