Sandy is a nine-year-old girl. She has a big family. She lives with her parents, a brother and a sister. Sandy thinks her family life was not happy. She and her brother and sister often fight with each other for many reasons.

Max is Sandy’s classmate and neighbor. He also has a very big family with two brothers and their parents. Sandy notices that Max never fights with his brothers. They always have big smiles on their faces.

Sandy thought that was strange. One day she asked Max why they got on well with each other. Max smiled and asked Sandy to go home with him.

As they came into the house, Max’s elder brother saw them. “Hi, Sandy and Max,”he said, “Why not come here and share some ice cream with me?”

At that time, Max’s younger brother came out of his room. He looked very excited and said, “Oh, Max, I have a story to tell you.”

Sandy knew Max’s secret of getting on well with his brothers was to share. Sharing their snacks and stories with each other made their life happier.

Sandy decided to go back home and try this from then on.

There was a terrible rainstorm last night. Now the Hills are talking about what they were doing at the time of the rainstorm.

One day, when I finished raising money for a charity and was on the train back home, I put down my phone and started writing thank-you notes to people who helped.

When I got off the train, I felt amazingly good. The next day, I wrote more thank-yous and the same feeling of happiness hit me again. I suddenly had the idea: Why not keep on doing this for every day of the year?

To keep on task, I decided to pick out a different theme for each month. January was charity. February would be neighbours. And many names came to my mind right away.

While writing the notes, I realized I spent too much time on the phone moving from app to app, enjoying other people’s lives. Writing thank-you notes allowed me the time to do something different, paying more attention to my own life.

In the following months, I wrote to my friends, doctors and teachers. In July, my “food” month, I wrote to Julie, who used to cook at my favorite restaurant. It went like this:

Dear Julie,

I find myself missing you lately. Thank you for hosting and cooking beautiful food. Jake and I will never forget the cake you made for our wedding. We talk about it every year.

Thank you. We miss you.

Love,

Gina

I was happy to receive a note back from her. Julie replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever received such a touching letter before. I’m going through a hard time right now, and this helps.”

On December 31, I wrote my last card—to Jake, my husband, and our two kids. And I took a picture of us, so I could remember the feeling coming up inside me. Gratitude.