What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by who and for what?

Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day.

The kind of courage that is strengthened or created by concern about what others will think is really a form of fear. Fear of disapproval or dishonor becoming stronger than fear of injury or even death.

It is easier to be grateful for the things we have than to the people who have helped us get them.

Our character is revealed by how we treat people who cannot help us or hurt us.

Discipline yourself to start each day identifying something to be grateful about. The world opens to those who approach it with a grateful heart.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the many things we have to be thankful for, not so we feel guilty about what we have that others don't, but to be genuinely grateful for our blessings.