For my thirteenth birthday, I asked for a book.

A journal, to be more specific. I've always loved journals. I have been perpetually recording my life since I was about five years old, when my dad gave me my first journal.

However, the one I had picked out for as a birthday present was a bit more...specialized.

It was called Gratitude: A Journal.

I had never really paid much attention to this before, but what I normally wrote down in my journals - be it cursory blurbs or extensive descriptions - didn't always include many, well, POSITIVE things. It was either furious venting over sometimes ridiculous or sometimes serious problems, or my vengeful reveling in bearing witness to the bad luck of someone I disliked, and maybe some jealous remarks, or even randomly useless occurrences of the day.

I guess I wasn't a really positive person.

I wouldn't say that I am now, either. But I chose to put Gratitude: A Journal on my birthday wish list because I knew that gratitude was a skill I needed to work on.

And I will say that this book definitely made a difference.

I don't know who Catherine Price is. I never even really considered that people actually WRITE journals, only that people write IN them.

But I do know that the interesting introduction, the deep quotes, and the meaningful prompts included in Gratitude: A Journal were more than effective in helping me identify the smallest of life's blessings. The statement sounds cliche - but probably because there are no better words to use.

A little bit into the journal, I came to a prompt that asked me to write a gratitude letter for someone special, and then present it to them.

That reminded me of how my teachers in elementary school had students write cards to their parents or their peers for all kinds of things, like holidays that some of the kids didn't celebrate. But it was probably more out of nervousness than amusement that made me procrastinate. I didn't know how to write an effective gratitude letter, much less single out someone who I felt was important enough to write the letter to. And the worst part to consider was how a person might react to a sappy letter of appreciation.

I put it off the task. But soon afterwards, near Thanksgiving Day, I was bombarded with messages from teachers and commercials and a bunch of other propaganda-spreading tools about how it was so important to remember everything that you're thankful for on Thanksgiving.

Which all ended up making me feel obliged to conjure up gratitude letters for each of my family members.

My mom was the first to come to me after reading hers. She was crying when she walked into my room to give me a hug. Later, my little sister thanked me with her sweet, sincere voice and gave me a hug. My older sister threw her arms around me and casually yelled "Thank you for the thank-you note!"

My older sister and I hardly ever hug.

I was pretty surprised when all that happened. My family is not what I would consider a "close" one. We don't have very open or comfy relationships with one another. The reactions I got once I expressed my gratitude was awkward, I'll admit.

Things probably wouldn't be that way if I expressed my thanks more often.

Someone once told me to "compliment as often as you complain." And to me, that makes total sense. Nobody likes to be criticized- I've been called over-sensitive more than a few times by my family. And I regret to say that I never really acknowledged this before - but people tend to react better when I'm thrifty with my complaints. They definitely react better when I acknowledge that they've done something RIGHT, too.

And I can completely relate to that - my parents and my sister always say that I take their insults too hard.

But maybe if they tried complimenting me as much as they complain about me....