Like many of you, I’ve heard about the benefits of journaling. Some of the most obvious benefits include:
a. Memory record
b. Archives for nostalgia
c. Thought clarity
d. Improved writing skills
e. Sufficient records to write a memoir
The list of benefits is endless. Until a couple of years ago, when I journaled in a diary using a fountain pen, the entries lacked openness and frankness. Although I loved the experience of writing with a pen, the content primarily revolved around the facts of the day or the week.
All of this changed when I shifted to DayOne journal (no, I am not promoting it). I mean online journaling, and any app works. The experience of holding a pen and scribbling about the day in my diary is lost.
It is now an app, and typing out the day is interspersed with replying to emails and WhatsApp messages. Despite the ease of typing at any time during the day, I often skip it for days at a stretch.
But whenever I decide to journal, the tabs on the app show something like this:
I click on “On This Day” and then get to read what I was thinking and writing about on the same day in the past.
I have maintained this routine for two years now, and I find it very helpful—indeed, enlightening.
My findings from journaling on an app are:
a. The day I die, and my family has access to the app, they may curse more and love less.
b. I am writing more about my feelings, not just the facts.
c. Mention of the weather for the day and its impact on my physical being comes pretty effortlessly.
d. I get to type before or after, as the case may be, about my day while reading what I felt on the same day in the past.
There is a clear pattern or trend in my feelings and physical health. A day here or there, and the same feelings and experiences regarding health and mind are written.
So, am I not changing or evolving?
It hardly matters. What matters is that I am enlightened about what I think, and there is a pattern to it.
Isn’t this enlightening enough?