Dear friend,

As I've said before, I hope it's not presumptuous of me to call you a friend, but as I frequently share deeply personal thoughts and stories with you, I hope you feel, as I do, that we share a meaningful bond and special connection.

First, please accept my heartfelt wish that you -- and all those you love -- have a very happy and rewarding Thanksgiving holiday.

I hope you will spend it among loved ones and open your heart to appreciate your good fortune.

Thanksgiving is the beginning of a holiday season that is filled with special opportunities, starting with the opportunity for all of us to reflect on what we have and hold and to experience a sense of gratitude.

Being grateful is not easy for many of us, especially in traumatic times like these where financial worries and insecurities can dominate our lives. It is human nature that our fears, losses, and pains tend to hover over our thoughts. It sometimes takes work to identify and assess all the things we can and should be grateful for.

Using any objective standards, almost everyone reading these remarks has a truly good life, one that millions of less fortunate folks yearn for.

As I was looking through old photos of my children while preparing to put together a special booklet for my daughter Carissa's Bat mitzvah in a few weeks, I was struck with sweet sadness by how much they've changed. I took some comfort in the advice of Dr. Seuss: "Don't be sad that it is over, smile because it happened."

If it isn't a happy time for you, consider taking a journey through your memory museum and relive the good moments with a true sense of thanksgiving.

I also remind you to hang in there; things will get better.

Second, I want to express my thanks, my sincere gratitude to you, for making it seem worthwhile to express my thoughts on a daily basis.

I don't know whether it's because I have more to do, have less energy and need more sleep, or am running out of things to say, but the difficulty in writing these regular messages is increasing. What keeps me going are comments from you telling me something I said made a positive difference. Receiving the thanks of others is a gift to me for which I have always been deeply grateful.

Third, I want to personally ask those of you who believe you have benefited in some way from our work to express that gratitude in a tangible way -- in the form of a donation to the Institute.

I hope my request does not seem crass, but the simple fact is we are a nonprofit organization and we need financial support to keep doing all that we are. Sadly, our needs are greater than ever in these tough economic times where many sources of our income are drying up.

As you may know, I accept no compensation from the Institute. I'm a full-time volunteer. This emboldens me to ask you to express gratitude for my commentaries and to give generously with a tax-deductible donation.

We have nearly 100,000 subscribers to this free newsletter. We have resisted pressures and powerful arguments for imposing a subscription fee because none of us at the Institute wants to add a barrier to our efforts to remind and reinforce the notion that character really does count. But the simple economic fact is that this newsletter is expensive to produce and in order to continue providing it we need you, the reader, to step up to the plate. In these difficult economic times, any donation will be significant.

This is not intended to make anyone feel guilty, but I do want to be frank about our need and direct in my request that you include the Josephson Institute as one of the organizations you support in your year-end giving.

To donate, call 800-711-2670 or click here.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Josephson

"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality."
-- Alfred Painter

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'Thank you,' that would suffice."
-- Eckhart von Hochheim, German theologian, philosopher (1260-1328)

"The unthankful heart...discovers no mercies, but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!"
-- Henry Ward Beecher, clergyman, social reformer (1813-1887)

"God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say, 'Thank you'?"
-- William A. Ward, writer (1921-1994)

"Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone."
-- GB Stern, British author (1890-1973)

"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."
-- John E. Southard

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all."
-- William Faulkner, author (1897-1962)

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."
-- Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian theologian, physician (1875-1965)

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
-- William A. Ward

"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily."
-- Gerald Good

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
-- John F. Kennedy, 35th President (1917-1963)

"I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than have things I cannot appreciate."
-- Elbert Hubbard, writer, philosopher (1856-1915)

"Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel."
-- Anonymous