Thanksgiving is our gateway to love, peace, and understanding for ourselves, our family, our neighbors, and our country.

CNN: What are you thankful for?

Their review of psychological literature over the decades clearly points out that our understanding of ourselves is imperfect at best.

FORBES: Don't Stand By Your Man--Please

"The government recognises that religious education has a distinctive and unique contribution to play in teaching children about the beliefs and values underpinning our understanding of ourselves and what is right and wrong, our sense of belonging and respect for each other, " she said.

BBC: Religion pulls in GCSE students

But while we have readily and rightfully committed ourselves to understanding the cause of the spill, its effects and how to help restore the affected Gulf Coast region, we still can't seem to come to grips with a much more dangerous, far-reaching pollutant that is changing the fundamental chemistry of our entire planet: carbon dioxide.

CNN: What if carbon dioxide were as black as oil?

Whether she gets that money or not, the intellectual property, and the ultimately successful efforts to come to grips with unprecedented amounts of data, will change our understanding of the world, and ourselves.

FORBES: Big Data's People-Changing Machine

We have lost our sense of community and our understanding that by helping our neighbor prosper, we ourselves prosper.

FORBES: Why Is the U.S. Middle Class Unable to Defend Its Interests?

The hope is that this gives us, as individuals, a better window into ourselves and as a society, better understanding of each another.

FORBES: Facebook's New Features and The Cookies of Our Lives

It is a passion of mine and a privilege to work with the Somali-American community in central Ohio as well as the community at large while working toward cooperation and understanding as we attempt to make a home for ourselves here in the United States.

WHITEHOUSE: Champions of Change Blog

And a better understanding of what drove the numbers down can steer us toward doing things that make people better off rather than congratulating ourselves on how moral we are.

WSJ: Steven Pinker: Why Violence Is Vanishing