Journal Writing - In an effort to not only record, but to revisit, the experiences of my daily life, I have taken to journal writing. In all honesty, the habit began at quite a young age, when I was wont to record my prosaic experiences of life and love at the age of 8. Since then, I have barely missed a beat, though the journal writing has become more insular and reflective than merely the documentation of my daily routines.
Writing is not for everyone, and many people loathe the thought of doing any additional scrawling outside of their work. Yet I believe recording one’s thoughts through journal writing is a natural and honest way of approaching the world, giving one insight into the thoughts, actions, beliefs and ideas of the world and things around you. It also allows the opportunity to notice the environment you live in – including recording all the impressions from your five senses.
Many people have set ideas of what it means to do journal writing, involving a committed and rigorous approach to divulging every iota of your daily life. This need not be the case. Though I don’t doubt that writing one’s activities is useful (as photos can capture moments for posterity), journal writing can and should move beyond that. The reason being is that most of the time our thoughts are not whole and determinedly thought out. Thoughts and ideas are fractured, capricious things, appearing and disappearing at whim. Journal writing is the to the writer as the net is to the butterfly catcher: it helps to grab the thoughts and pin them down before they fly away indefinitely.
Writing one’s ideas and beliefs helps to form and structure them into a solid whole. Though there is no hard and fast rule about the actual style for journal writing, putting ideas down on paper helps to make sense of them beyond the swirling thoughts of your psyche. You may even find that once you have written things down, that you have uncovered a profound understanding of yourself and what you believe. Journal writing can be used as a sounding board for your own questions and concerns about the world, and you will learn to rely more on yourself for solution than on any advice your friends can provide.
One of the most useful qualities about journal writing is the ability to retread your thoughts from the past. These can be helpful if you are encountering a particular problem that you have experienced before, or if you would like to see how much you have matured through the years. It can be an eye-opener to see that things that affected you so much in the past are things you no longer need to worry about. Journal writing can almost be a litmus test for your past, present and future; allowing you to examine the intensity or superficiality of you emotions and giving you the motivation to see change in your life.
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