We make resolutions as we approach the end of yet another year to improve ourselves. We take the time to look at our lives as a blank canvas, on which we can build masterpieces should we put in the effort. And this is a good thing; the continuous urge to become our best selves is what has kept us progressing in every sense. But this year, I wanted to look not inward, but outward. If we can look at our own lives as a blank sheet of paper, an unmarked canvas, a pre-conceived idea, why can't we take that lens and turn it towards the world? Over and over again, I'm hearing the continuous complaints that 2016 was a year filled with darkness, with hate, with a strange black cloud that seemed to hover over everything and even snatch up our most beloved public figures. Rarely do I hear the question that this time of year is ripe for: how do we fix it? How do we disperse the negativity and truly make 2017 a better year?

Maybe the answer is to de-individualize ourselves. Maybe an increasingly community-centered approach is exactly what we need to mobilize. We have ideas, but we have no unity. And that is what I wish for you in the new year. I wish that your connections grow stronger, that if you have not yet found your tribe, maybe they find you. I wish that you see good things happening around you, small things, on a day-to-day basis; a woman giving a homeless man a five dollar bill, or a kind word said by a stranger. But I also wish for you to be that stranger. I wish for more fairy godmothers, surprise benefactors, and charity for the sake of putting some optimism into the world. And I wish that if you need it, that good fortune finds you.

Give more. See more. And most of all, listen more. "It takes a village" isn't just for raising children. For grand scale change, it takes all of us. So extend a hand, and lend an ear. Everyone out there has something to teach you.