A few years ago I suffered a "home invasion" when 22 of my relatives showed up for Thanksgiving. (Some of them were actually invited.)

We gave thanks for our health, our friends, each other... and a 26-pound bird stuffed with cornbread dressing and surrounded by cranberry sauce, squash soufflé, parmesan-garlic green beans with almonds and sweet potato casserole.

(No wonder the Pilgrims had the Wampanoag tribe over.)

With all our blessings, however, one day of thanks can never really be enough.

In his book Discovering the Laws of Life, famed money manager and philanthropist Sir John Templeton recommended a different approach. He called it thanksliving.

Thanksliving means practicing an attitude of perpetual gratitude.

That's not hard when times are good. But many Americans are dealing with the financial, personal or health issues that every family encounters from time to time. That can make an attitude of continual thankfulness a tall order.

Yet Templeton offered a radical perspective. Don't just give thanks for your blessings. Be grateful for your problems, too.

This seems wildly counterintuitive at first blush. But facing our challenges makes us stronger, smarter, tougher and more valuable as parents, mates, employees... and human beings.

Solving problems is what we're made for. It's what makes life worth living.

Says Templeton...

Adversity, when overcome, strengthens us. So we are giving thanks not for the problem itself but for the strength and knowledge that will come from it. Giving thanks for this growth ahead of time will help you to grow through - not just go through - your challenges.

Circumstances alone never decide our fate. We have the ability to shape our destiny. And it starts with believing we can.

Worries, regrets and complaints solve nothing. They change nothing. Rather, they undermine your health, your social environment and your quality of life.

Difficult situations are rarely resolved with positive thoughts or gratitude alone, however. It takes another crucial ingredient: sustained action.

Even then, some problems are intractable. Others - like the death of a loved one - are insoluble. In certain circumstances, only an attitude of acceptance moves us forward.

Most of our day-to-day problems, however, are created by the person in the mirror.

We made them. And we can fix them.

According to pastor Preston Bradley...

The world has a way of giving what is demanded of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty, you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world. Expect victory and you make victory. Nowhere is this truer than in business life, where bravery and faith bring both material and spiritual rewards.

This lesson is best learned at an early age. Once when I was about 7, my father asked me to load some heavy-looking boxes into his car.

I looked them over doubtfully. "I can't," I said.

It was one of the few times I ever saw him angry. "What was that word you just used?" he demanded.

"Can't?" I asked, sheepish.

"I don't want to hear  that  word again," he said. Then he strode off as I (ahem) loaded the boxes.