For THANKFULNESS itself we should be thankful. ——
If you want to succeed, cultivate a feeling of hopeful thankfulness.
Hopefulness, thankfulness and success are as near akin as light, heat and motion—the same force underlies, makes up the first trio, as it does the second.
If you find it hard to be thankful, read a little of history, and thankfulness will come. Thousands of millions of men have lived and suffered to make your existence here at least bearable. You may not be satisfied, but you have comforts that were not dreamed of by the luckiest a few centuries back. You think the prosperous have too many privileges.
Perhaps they have. But when your great-grandfather was a young man a nobleman could order his lackeys to seize Voltaire the greatest mind in Europe—and beat him almost to death. Voltaire was locked up in the Bastile for complaining.
Thanks to the eternal row that Voltaire kicked up, you can never be treated as he was. So be thankful to Voltaire.
Be thankful to the long line of plucky men and fighters—not forgetting Christopher Columbus—who have gone before you.
Be thankful that you are alive in an interesting age with interesting events happening.
Be thankful also that with thankfulness you combine the feeling of dissatisfaction, of unrest that will push you ahead and give you cause for fresh thankfulness next year. ——
We are thankful to have you for a reader.