My Journaling Story
One of the best decisions I made during high school was picking up a pen and notebook, and using them. Not because I needed to write an essay, or was taking notes. I was writing for the sake of myself, to only myself. Since then, I have filled three diaries with the ink of my scribbly handwriting barely legible to any reader, and am halfway through a fourth one. And I can say my notebooks have left as big a mark on my life as I have on their pages.
I have always considered myself a very active thinker, and I am constantly occupied with thoughts and ideas. I was not an overthinker, it wasn’t that I usually think too much about any particular subject; I would first muse about my study plan for the math midterms, then to a book that I really wanted to read, then suddenly decide to listen to a song that jumped into my mind. While my thoughts were abstract and thus, chaotic and ever changing, channeling them onto a piece of paper captured and materialized these otherwise shifty ideas. Since I have written it down, I knew I could always go back to it
I found it very difficult to sit down and write to expectations. In the beginning, I journaled like a Vlogger, trying to capture down all the details about what I did in paper. While many diarists love to do that, I did not like this forced routine, and I developed the method of rapidly jotting down everything that came up to me, with absolute conviction of being in the exact present moment. Instead of it being forced and stressful, I found this routine to be effortless and liberating. Particularly, when I was feeling down, I would write down everything that bothered me, and seeing it in words put a noticeable distance between my worries and myself. Additionally, I realized that positivity is contagious when journaling, and once I noted down a silver lining, I would connect it to another empowering thought, eventually lifting me out of the hole I dug.
There are many different kinds of journaling. A journal entry can be in the form of a letter, a proper paragraph or my favorite style: a runoff sentence that goes on and on. Journal prompts can be easily found, and are fun to follow. Many adults incorporate morning pages as a morning habit, which is the practice of writing two pages of all excess thoughts and concerns straight after waking up. In Sophomore year, I attempted bullet journaling, a popular method of personal organization. Although its artistic demands weren't exactly a sustainable practice for me, the emphasis on neatness and organization instilled a touch of order into my lifestyle, I learned to prioritize setting the structure of a day on my own terms before tackling any actual tasks itself. That is what I continue to pursue today.
Journaling is not only an unwinding activity, but also reveals a broader grasp of your identity and values that is free from the chains of spontaneity. Flipping through the pages of my previous journal, I realized how important a morning shower is to my productivity; my mornings would often be wasted otherwise. Looking back at my worries, I realize how insignificant some of my burdens were. For example, forgetting earbuds when going to the library is no excuse to procrastinate on an essay. Logging your day is a simple task, but its benefits are immediate and cumulative. Even jotting down one sentence preserves an invaluable moment of the present mind.
