We should all be "THANSKSGIVING"
a word from the President & CEO - Gabe O'Meara

As the Holiday season approaches, I reflect on the words "thanks giving". The words, when compounded to "Thanksgiving" denominate an American holiday instituted by a proclamation signed by George Washington in New York on the 3rd of October 1789.

For a moment let's consider the word "Thanksgiving" to be a verb, as in “to give thanks”.

We should be "Thanksgiving" for living in the greatest free country in the world. It is not always perfect and there are occasions when we need to amend, change and correct laws and policies of our country.
(Continued from homepage...) We should be "Thanksgiving" for having the right to participate in these changes without fear of being censured, incarcerated or as it happens in many other countries, permanently silenced.

We must be "Thanksgiving" for small things which we take for granted such as drinking water out of the tap, our fast response ambulances and public services, our public libraries and a number of social safety nets that are there when we need them.

We should be "Thanksgiving" for the most important thing this great country has to offer...HOPE.  In America, we are encouraged to nurture our hopes, to set goals and to achieve them.  Our concept of HOPE is real and attainable.  In many countries a person who is born poor and disenfranchised has very little hope of ever breaking loose from his inherited destiny.  Persons are discouraged at an early age from wishing for a better life.  Hope to them is an unachievable, untouchable concept.

At times, our country goes through rough phases. The current economic turmoil has shed a veil of negativity and despair over many people's lives. The truth is that we are so accustomed to prosperity that a bump in the road often becomes a looming mountain of darkness and hopelessness. We have gone through worse times than this. Our country has survived world wars and economic depressions during which the rationing of food and gas was a daily reality. Americans have sprung back from these calamities in relatively short periods of time. We always come back stronger and wiser. It won't be any different this time, folks. My partner and VP of this company, Bobby Lahiere, has a message written in his Skype box: "When life gets tough, I choose to get tougher". That's what it's all about.

This holiday season, let's be "Thanksgiving" for what we have and for what we have accomplished. Let's be grateful for the privilege of being able to hope and believe that better days are just around the bend and that we can realize all of our aspirations. Let's be "Thanksgiving" to our friends and family, to our colleagues at work, to the older persons who paved the way for us. Let us be "Thanksgiving' to our troops, our teachers, our firemen and police officers, and to those rare legislative leaders who are honest, patriotic, and truly have our best interests in mind.

In 1991, during the beginning phase of this company, I had a short tenure as a volunteer interpreter at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a poignant lesson in humility and tenacity. I remember that on Thanksgiving Day, many of the doctors, researchers, volunteers, nurses and staff took time off from their own family gatherings to visit the kids at the hospital. Many of the children were from foreign countries and did not know what the Thanksgiving holiday was about. Nevertheless, the act of "Thanksgiving" exhibited by the staff and volunteers was not lost on the young patients. During my time at St. Jude, I saw doctors cry when a patient was lost. I also saw them rejoice when a child came back for a checkup 5 years after he had been cured from an "incurable" disease.

At the time, I was far away from my family and struggling to start my company. Although I was alone and practically broke, I had hopes and dreams for a better future. These small kids who faced incredible adversities and unbelievable odds, inspired me to act on my hopes and dreams to realize my goals. Almost 20 years later, I look back on that particular Thanksgiving Day at St Jude Hospital and realize how meaningful it was. I learned the true significance of the word "Thanksgiving".

This holiday season let us be "giving" persons to those who are in need, to those who were dealt a seemingly losing hand. By giving, we all stand to win, for giving is a guaranteed investment in our own karma and spiritual bank. The act of giving is an irrefutable natural process governed by natural laws. Giving (charity) guarantees results, returns and rewards to those who give as well as to those who receive.

This Thanksgiving holiday, we at Translators, Inc. would like to extend our most sincere appreciation to all of our faithful clients, employees, translators and language professionals who, for the past 18 years, have made us one of the most respected and successful language companies in the industry. We are "Thanksgiving" for being free and able to cross this current economic bump in the road. We would like to extend our optimism and sincere well wishes to all of our competitors as well.

The great 20th century American writer, Edward Sanford Martin wrote:
“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”

Let us celebrate and be "Thanksgiving" on this 26th of November and every day thereafter.