I feel honored by such requests and don’t want to bite the hand that pats my back, but it’s troubling how often listeners tell me they want to use my remarks not as a personal guide but as a bludgeon to beat a friend, family member, or work associate over the head. I imagine the presentation going something like: “Here – if you want to know what’s wrong with you, read this!”

First of all, I can’t imagine someone, after being presented with an essay in the form of an assault, would thank his or her assailant and pledge to change. Even the best advice is rarely well-received if it’s critical. It may take a wise person to give good advice, but it takes an honest and courageous one to take it with grace.

Respectfully, I suggest that my commentaries work better as mirrors than clubs. The next time you hear me talking about integrity or similar topics, please remember that you don’t have to be sick to get better. Think how the comment may apply to your life, not someone else’s.

I’m happy to supply copies of any commentary to anyone, but it feels better knowing it’s for you, something to keep in your wallet or desk or on the refrigerator to remind you of how much better you can be.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of his friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone from the beginning to the end.
He noted that first came her date of birth and spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time she spent alive on earth,
And now only those who loved her know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not how much we own – the cars, the house, the cash –
What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard – are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down long enough to consider what’s true and real,
And always try to understand the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more,
And love the people in our lives like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy’s been read with your life’s actions to rehash,
Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

*Linda has a website where you can order printed copies of the full poem and read more than a dozen other uplifting verses at www.lindaellisonline.com.

I always knew my dad loved me. I took it for granted. He was supposed to. I was his son. I’m always a bit shocked when I run into people who’ve had a different experience. The truth is, not all dads love their kids, and those who do don’t always express it. I had no idea how lucky I was.

Until I became a father myself, I had no way of understanding the depth and intensity of his feelings and the emotional investment he had in my happiness. I couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt him when I was cut from my baseball team or dumped by my first girlfriend or how proud he’d be today seeing me become the kind of father he taught me to be.

I always assumed I loved my dad and he knew it, but the truth is, my love was shallow and unexplored. I never came close to feeling or expressing gratitude for all the ways he made my childhood safe, comfortable, and fun. I wish I had given him that gift.

Of course, my dad wasn’t perfect. He had flaws like everyone else. It’s so easy to magnify our parents’ shortcomings, minimize their virtues, and misjudge their love.

What’s not easy is experiencing and expressing gratitude while it still matters.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

Charlie answers, “To make others happy.”

Lucy replies, “I don’t think I’m making anyone happy,” and then adds, “but nobody’s making me very happy either. Somebody’s not doing his job!”

People like Lucy are so sure happiness is a matter of getting something that they ask not what they can do for others but what others can and should do for them. They usually feel shortchanged or cheated. They become so preoccupied with what they don’t have that they can’t enjoy what they do have.

What’s more, they don’t realize one of the best ways to be happy is to experience the joy and self-worth of making others happy.

In his book Happiness Is a Serious Problem, Dennis Prager argues that it’s human nature to want and feel we need more. The problem is, the quest for more is endless because we can always add more to whatever we have. As a result, the Lucys of the world often live in an “if only” world that keeps them one step away from happiness: “If only I get this raise, make this sale, pay off my debts, or win this game, I’ll be happy.”

Abraham Lincoln understood that happiness is essentially a way of looking at one’s life. “A person is generally about as happy as he’s willing to be,” he said.

Thus, we’re more likely to experience happiness if we realize it’s not just getting what we want. It’s learning to want what we get.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

It would be callous and foolish to minimize the hardship or trivialize the emotional trauma many people will go through, but one thing we know about the economy and about happiness is that surrendering to despair always makes things worse.

Is it possible to have a good life in bad times? Is it possible to experience simple pleasures, even joy, in the midst of financial worries?

The question is not merely academic. Like millions of others, my family and Josephson Institute are faced with daunting and disruptive financial challenges.

Yet I believe hard times need not be horrible times.

I am a confident optimist. I believe there are all sorts of opportunities in uncertainty and change. Some of the best things that ever happened to me started out as disappointments or disasters. I believe with all my heart that those who accept and embrace their circumstances with a commitment to make the best of it will make the best of it. They will not only survive, they will flourish.

Instead of wallowing in fear or self-pity, believing their best days are behind them, confident optimists are steadfast in the conviction that the best is yet to come.

Unwelcome circumstances can cause us to rethink our priorities and strategies, give us time to enjoy old pleasures, try new things and, most of all, spend more time nurturing and appreciating our relationships so we can discover and savor moments of friendship, love, and pride we’d otherwise miss.

I’m confidently optimistic for another reason as well. I’m not merely hopeful, but certain that the storm will end, the sun will come out again, and good times will return – all I have to do is endure.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

For instance, I’ve learned that trying to be a good person is a lifelong commitment and that it often requires me to do the right thing even when it costs more than I want to pay.

I’ve learned that kindness is more important than cleverness and that carrying grudges is foolish and self-defeating.

I’ve learned that my dad was right when he told me, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and that tenacity is more important to success than talent.

I’ve learned that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional and that I have a lot to say about my own happiness.

I’ve learned that a life focused on fun and pleasure rarely leads to happiness or fulfillment.

I’ve learned that in my personal relationships and in the workplace I’ve got to set limits because whatever I allow, I encourage.

I’ve learned that the things I like to do least are often the things that need to be done most.

I’ve learned that it’s easy to fall into self-righteousness and that neither the intensity of my feelings nor the certainty of my convictions is any assurance that I’m right.

I’ve learned that unless I translate my thoughts into actions, my great ideas and good intentions are like unlit candles.

I’ve learned that I cannot lie myself out of a problem and that the problems I ignore don’t go away, they just grow bigger.

Please send me some of the things you’ve learned so I can share them on our website, www.charactercounts.org.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

These aren’t questions you can answer off the top of your head. They require serious and systematic reflection, an essential quality of wisdom and the foundation stone of happiness.

Before you finalize your New Year’s resolutions, consider adding a commitment to be self-consciously reflective and self-confidently humble.

Self-conscious reflection is developing the habit of regularly reviewing and reconsidering life’s experiences to extract meaningful lessons.

An annual ritual is important but hardly enough. Think how much more you’ll learn and grow if at the end of each day or week you set aside quiet time to ask yourself these three questions:

1. What went well, and what didn’t?
2. What did I do to make things better or worse, and what could I have done better?
3. Were my attitudes and reactions to the experience what I wanted them to be?

This sort of rigorous reflection doesn’t happen spontaneously. That’s why it has to be self-conscious. I confess I often don’t follow my own advice. My goal this year is to be more self-disciplined.

Self-confident humility is the attitude that you don’t have to be sick to get better; an abiding belief that there is always something to learn from every experience and that being smarter or better today doesn’t mean you were inadequately smart, sensible, or virtuous yesterday.

If you can’t list at least ten useful life lessons from the past year, you either haven’t thought hard enough or you may be afflicted with self-limiting arrogance, the belief that you really are as smart and good as you can or care to be.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

As you look forward to the future, the place where you’ll spend the rest of your life, it’s smart to look back at the immediate past and objectively assess what went well and what didn’t in your job, your relationships, your health, and your overall sense of fulfillment. What did you learn that can help make your life better?

If you had a bad year, it’s possible you were a wholly innocent victim, or maybe your own actions or attitudes contributed to serious grief or unhappiness. Either way, please accept my best wishes and sincere condolences. Please be careful, however, not to wallow in sorrow, sympathy, shame, or self-doubt. Don’t allow yesterday’s pain to become tomorrow’s suffering.

Be accountable, but be fair to yourself.

Start the next stage of your life’s journey with optimism and confidence. Remember, you’re the captain of your own ship. Take the wheel, choose your course, and get on your way.

Sure, there might be more rough seas ahead, but there is also peace, reconciliation, achievement, challenge, and true joy. You just have to find it. Abe Lincoln pointed out that one of the good things about the future is it always comes one day at a time.

May this New Year be your best year – so far.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

Start by examining the way you think and feel about your job, your relationships, and yourself. After all, the single most important factor in personal happiness and your impact on others is your attitude.

In the geometry of life, the axiom is “positive attitudes produce positive results.” They make success more likely, failures less harmful, pleasures more frequent, and pain more bearable. Some people tend to bring warm sunshine wherever they go; others bring cold chills. What do you bring?

To find out where you can improve, take an honest inventory of your predispositions, the attitude you’re most likely to start with.

• Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic?
• Do you tend to assume the best or expect the worst of people?
• Is your first instinct to be empathetic or judgmental?
• Is your first instinct to be supportive or critical?
• Do you send the message that you enjoy life or that you’re barely enduring it?
• Do you come across as the captain of your own ship or simply a passenger?

Wherever you are on the positive-attitude spectrum, think how much better things could be if you were more consistently and self-consciously optimistic, empathetic, supportive, grateful, enthusiastic, hopeful, and cheerful.

So why not resolve to think, act, and speak more positively about yourself, your family, your coworkers, and everyone else in your life?

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

The prevalence and durability of grudges proves Maya Angelou’s observation that people don’t always remember what you said or did, but they do remember how you made them feel.

Grudges are nothing more than toxic memories of how someone made us feel.

But Confucius taught that “To be wronged is nothing unless we continue to remember it.” So why do so many of us choose to consciously preserve and revisit toxic feelings that detract from our happiness?

Perhaps we fool ourselves into thinking we can inflict some sort of pain on the person who wronged us. In fact, holding on to a grudge is like holding on to a hot stone. It doesn’t hurt the stone or the person who gave it to us; it only hurts the one holding it. Carrying a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.

It doesn’t matter how justified the bitter feelings are or how right we are. Holding on to a grievance turns pain into suffering. In a peculiar way it empowers the wrongdoer to hurt us again and again.

So start out this New Year by giving yourself a great gift. Muster the good sense and strength to root out and release deep-seated and long-held resentments.

If you can, forgive and forget. But all that’s really necessary is a firm decision to let go of your grudges so you can move forward and free yourself of the chains of resentment.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

It’s wonderful to compile a list of hundreds of family, friends, and business associates whom I want to thank with a gift or card. It’s worrisome that following through on my good feelings and intentions feels like such a burden.

With five children, nine siblings, and countless nieces and nephews, our family gift list could cross the eyes of a North Pole elf. And even being selective, dozens of coworkers and business associates deserve tangible expressions of affection and appreciation.

It’s wonderful seeing the pleasure produced by the right gift, but it’s worrisome knowing that some recipients may not regard my choice as sufficiently generous, thoughtful, or appropriate. And then there’s the worry about offending people who didn’t get a gift or card.

When it comes to presents, I really believe “it’s the thought that counts,” but if I don’t know or have the time to find out what the other person really wants or needs, how can I invest the gift with thoughtfulness it deserves? Printed holiday cards and fruit baskets don’t involve much thought, but finding the time to write hundreds of meaningful personal notes or selecting individual gifts is daunting.

As a result, I’m ashamed to admit that a sense of burden and obligation hovers over an activity that should be heartfelt and joy-filled.

The problem is made worse when I see many gift recipients experience short-lived or shallow gratitude. Whether they aren’t grateful because they know no sincere thoughtfulness went into the gift or because the gift simply isn’t what they wanted, the experience falls short of its potential.

I’d like to hear your ideas on a better way to handle this next year.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

To lots of kids, the answer may be embedded in the response to the question: “Whaddja get?” On the other hand, retailers and Wall Street investors will look to sales and profits. What a pity that the spiritual and social potential of this a holiday can be so easily lost.

Of course, Christmas is a profoundly important day of worship to devout Christians, so a “good” Christmas must include a meaningful religious connection with the teachings of Jesus. But for many Christians and non-Christians, there are other dimensions to this day.

In fact, Christmas is more than a single day; it’s a season involving weeks of preparation and celebration devoted to family, friendships and, most important of all, a grand vision of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” To me, a good Christmas is one that helps us become better people so we can have better lives and a better society.

On a personal level, the optimism, good cheer, and goodwill embodied in the Christmas spirit are antidotes to selfishness and superficiality. They can help us find purpose and meaning in love, kindness, charity, gratitude, and forgiveness.

On a social level, a good Christmas is one where we can say we’ve made meaningful progress combating homelessness, hunger, and poverty. It would also be a good Christmas if we truly overcame the fears, suspicions, and prejudices that hinder our expression of goodwill to all men, regardless of their ethnicity, national origin, or personal religion.

So regardless of your religion, I hope you’ll make this Christmas a good one.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

Al always greeted my girls cheerfully and let them rummage through the candy and chip counters. A Vietnam veteran, he was overweight and had a jolly nature and a gray beard so my girls thought of him as a local Santa Claus, a description I discovered had a ring of truth.

In 1976, Al visited a local VA facility one day on an impulse. He ended up staying all day chatting with the lonely men who were deeply nourished by his personal attention. That Christmas, he decided to deliver cards to the vets with handwritten messages and heartwarming stories. When he distributed the cards, he was moved by the tears of the men, many of whom felt forgotten and discarded.

It swelled his heart so much he launched Operation Christmas Card. By 1998, he had intensified his card-writing efforts (he wrote them all year) and recruited others to write personal notes as well. His cards reached 4,500 veterans that year.

The store closed and I lost touch with Al until by chance I ran into him a few years later. He was thinner and beardless but still passionate about his project. That year, he said, he distributed 15,000 cards in 31 states.

Al was just one of thousands of hidden angels who prove every day the power of love. Doesn’t it make you want to do more?

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

The route was familiar, and she was stunned when the cars pulled up in front of her house. When the pastor saw her, he said, “We never expected you to join us, Teresa. We know it’s been a great struggle since your husband died, and we all wanted to support you.”

Although she was uncomfortable being the object of charity, Teresa didn’t want to embarrass anyone so she cheerfully said, “Well, at least I can share these cookies with our friends.”

This parable teaches us that no one is too poor to help others and that true charity is rooted in love and compassion. Poverty of spirit is worse than economic distress. Teresa’s story reminds us that very few of us give as much as we could and should.

My friend Larry Rosen, president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, introduced me to the concept of “sacrificial giving” – giving in abundance to a point where one must sacrifice something that is desired.

You can start out easy. Take whatever amount you were thinking of giving to charity, then double it. If that’s too much, increase it by 50 percent instead. The idea is to stretch yourself. It will mean a lot to those you help, but it will mean as much to your heart.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

My wife’s a highly skilled shopper. She has strategies on where to park and how to find the fastest moving line. But what I admire most is her resolve not to let the mob mentality get her down. In fact, this is her “good attitude Olympics.”

She tries to prepare me beforehand. “Some clerks may be slow, uninformed, uncaring, or downright rude,” she says. “What are you going to do?”

Before I answer, she says, “You could say nothing and sulk. You could be nasty and demanding. Or you could complain to management. But don’t do any of that."

Instead, she says, be kind and understanding and try to make his or her day better. A simple “This must be a crazy time” or “I bet you’ve had a long day” can soften the person’s attitude significantly.

“Besides,” she adds, “it won’t ruin your shopping experience, and if you succeed in cheering up the clerk, you’ll do a good deed by preventing other customers from encountering grumpy service.”

When you choose to be cheerful and kind, chances are it will rub off on those around you. ’Tis the season to be jolly – even to stressed-out store personnel.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that that character counts.