WB Twp. Police Chief Will Clark offers thoughts for the year to come

WILKES-BARRE TWP. — At the start of 2023, Will Clark, Chief of Police, Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department offered an interesting take on the annual New Year’s resolution-making tradition.

Well, the Chief has done it again for 2024.

Last year, Chief Clark wrote:

“So I have never been much for the New Year’s resolution. They are in many instances lofty goals chosen on the spur of the moment, that are so easily abandoned during the grey and gloomy winter days of January or February. These resolutions are normally a fruitless challenge of the ‘self’ that ultimately ends in failure. Not exactly a good way to start off the year.”

And so we felt we would ask Chief Clark to again offer his sage thoughts for 2024.

“With a new year comes thoughts of time and how quickly it is passing us by,” Clark said. “It is what challenges us and causes us to fail and ultimately teaches us how to succeed.

“We learn from our history, which is no more than defined moments in time, so that we do not repeat mistakes made.

“Our nation is a vast culmination of peoples, cultures, experiences, traditions, lore, myth and legend — an amalgamation of time long since gone and time yet to come.

“There are few of us whose ancestors didn’t come from across the depths of the Atlantic to start a new life and be gifted more time.

“And there are even fewer of us remaining who lived through such hardship as two world wars and a great depression.

“With reason to believe hope had forsaken the Western world, America came out from under the rubble of the first half of the 20th Century to become a beacon of democracy.

“We should all seek the high designs of our forebears.

“The United States is quickly approaching its 250th year — a mere grain of sand in the cosmic hour glass. The historical contributions our nation has made in that short period of time are uncounted and the full positive impact our country has had globally cannot perhaps be properly measured by any simple mathematical equation.

“2024 will no doubt bring forth new challenges, much like years passed. With each new year we are granted the chance to influence the course of the future.

“Our failures in life define us as much as our accomplishments.

“Our pain makes us who we are.

“Our achievements become the foundations for continued prosperity even when the windows of the world seem to come under shadow and grow dark.

“We rarely wish to see such times, poignantly quips J.R.R. Tolkien, but that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

“In 2024 make your time count for something meaningful and history may judge your contribution to be timeless.”

The Chief again hit it out of the park.

And his message of 2023 still rings true.

“Instead of setting such high goals for yourself, we should start small and work to progress from there,” Chief Clark offered 365 days ago. “Retired Admiral William McRaven, former commander of the Special Operations Command for the United States Navy, once told the graduates of the Naval Academy — ‘If you want to save the world, start by making your bed.’”

The Chief continued:

“We look at the New Year as a chance to start anew, to do something different to hopefully better ourselves. I believe that each of us, all year, should do the simple things that guide us towards a happy home, a fulfilling and rewarding career, and a better community.

“Set a goal that can be achieved every day. Small successes are a wonderful source of self-motivation and a means for continued prosperity.”

Once again, well said, Chief.