Reasons to keep a journal

Tuesday, January 6

Reasons to keep a journal

Keeping a journal has always been important to me. From a small age, when my hands were still made of baby fat and my eyes knew very few words, I began writing in a journal as a way of entertaining myself. It all started with a fuzzy blue diary complete with lock and key, my mother gave it to me so I could doodle and let my feelings out of my head and onto the paper. I don't think she realized at the time how important this little journal would become for me. It was here where I learned to write stories, understand my emotions, laugh at the world around me and discover what it meant to be Amy. This journal was my home. It taught me about myself and helped me to discover the world I live in.

My journal was my sea in which I swam, my wishbone and my friend. I am forever grateful to the journal makers and journal buyers of the world for giving everybody a voice and a place to tell their own story. Here are my reasons for keeping a journal. Let me know your reasons in the comments!

Why you should keep a journal:

Journal writing is therapeutic. When you have tear filled eyes after a bad day, you can always count on the pen meeting the empty pages of your journal as a way of making yourself feel better. Writing in your journal is like talking to a friend whom you can trust wholeheartedly.
A journal is a place for self reflection. Two years from now, you can look through your journals and see how much you have grown.
You learn to write for yourself: not for an audience and not for an applause. In this day and age of instant gratification and social media sharing, we often forget why we began writing or creating art in the first place. Why does one begin writing? We write to express our inner workings and the world we see with words and to delight and entertain ourselves too.
You don't have to worry about being judged for your writing. Your journal is a cathedral only you can visit. You can fill it with flowers, pastries, cement, dirt and whatever else comes to your mind while you're writing in it. What matters most is being effortless and comfortable while you write, not how beautiful it would flow for someone else reading it.
Some of the best writing I've ever read was the journal writing of poets, ordinary folk, history-makers and authors published posthumously. However which way you look at it, journal writing is the greatest non-fiction ever penned. It tells our story. It tells stories of the world in which we live. It might scare you to think one hundred years from now, your journal could be read by a social history class or your great grandchildren, but it will mean your world and way of seeing it meant something to someone. Don't keep yourself from journal writing because you are afraid of becoming a part of history. Think of Anne Frank, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath.
Journal writing is fun. You can write in lists, in paragraphs, in doodles and in poems. Your journal is your own world.
The brain is fickle, you can't rely on it to keep your memories safe. We always remember moments and times in our lives a little differently than how they actually came to be. Your journal is a museum for your memories. It keeps them safe for you.
If you're an aspiring writer, journals help you to communicate your thoughts. You can become a better writer with the honesty you put into your journal. If you're a friend, journals give you reasons to be empathetic and more understanding.
You don't need to be a writer to benefit from keeping a journal. You just have to be a human being with feelings. When did it become that writing was meant only for those pursuing novels, songs and published works of art? Writing should exist the same way fresh air does: to help us get to where we need to be, to remind ourselves that we are alive and to make this world a better place to belong to.