Was this a year that caused you to examine your conscience or your motivation for personal or professional actions (or lack of them)? It was for me. A friend’s dire illness earlier in the year and the recent tragic shootings in Connecticut has caused me to realize I need to commit to a New Year’s resolution.  This is not something I do lightly, because I gave up making New Year’s resolutions at least two decades ago.

But this year, I vow to say the things that need to be said.

• To complement those who deserve to know they’ve done a good job or that I appreciate them and their endeavors.

• To stand up for what I believe to be right and ethical, even when my position is unpopular.

• To make amends and to never fear apologizing for wrongs I committed.

I realize that too often, people pass out of our lives without hearing what they mean to us.

Some time after I moved back to Rochester, I discovered that Dr. Abraham Rothberg, the professor I’d taken American Lit, Modern British Lit and Creative Writing from, was still living in Rochester. I even went so far as to look up his address and phone number, intending to call him and invite him out for coffee or lunch. I always meant to let him know how much his classes meant to me and that I enjoy literature more because of him.  The contact information sat on my desk for months and months. Then one day, I ran into a piece about him. It was a poignant eulogy by his editor, penned shortly after his death several months earlier.

I hadn’t seen him in decades, yet I felt a great loss…for the man – part professor, part Dutch Uncle – I had half-feared and fully admired during my courses in college… and for the opportunity to share the words of admiration and appreciation that were never said at the time and that, I’m sure, would have meant much to this man.

I examined my reasons for not having called him when I had so many chances. Up through the excuses bubbled two truisms: that I felt embarrassed about getting in touch after so many years to share what I should have said at the time; and that I feared his disappointment that I had not become the great fiction writer we had both had hoped I would back then.

When you lose the chance, you quickly discover that loss outweighs reasons by tenfold.

So 2013 will be the year of the seized chance, rather than of the latent regret.

What about you?