Why I journal on a daily basis

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I used to believe that journaling was a waste of time and considered people who wrote a diary as nerds. The idea of documenting your life in a little notebook didn’t convince me when I was younger. I thought my life was boring anyway. Repeating the same story of going to school and having the same conversations with my parents and recess play time with my school mates wasn’t actually worth writing down. I guess as teenager you don’t have the need to question your daily routine. At this age we follow societies life path and obey to our teachers and parents.

However, at some point we start to develop a higher awareness. As we get older and gain more experiences we tend to question decisions that we’ve made and sometimes regret things we did. We look back at our life and often end up with a big question mark floating over our heads. Life becomes more complicated and in your twenties you explore many different paths and try to find out who you really are. Existing is scary and can become quite overwhelming sometimes. Especially in the 21st century. We are bombarded with information every day and often cannot escape this waterfall of news, instagram posts, youtube videos, tiktok videos, etc. Unavoidably, we start to compare ourselves with the rest of society. Most of the time we feel intimidated by other peoples success. The information provided makes us believe that we are not fast enough, not intelligent enough, not beautiful enough. However, life is complicated enough without the internet. Trying to figure out your career. Trying to figure out relationships. Trying to understand Microsoft Office. Trying to figure out how to exist without going mad.

This can cause bad brain connections. I call them brain nots. These are parts of your mind where things get stuck and make you feel dreadful. I found that to open those nots in you head you must deal with your deepest thoughts. And here is where journaling comes in. The daily self reflection and thinking helps us find direction in life. The writing part is the important one. By forcing yourself to document your thoughts you automatically talk back to yourself. Each entry in your diary is like mental mirror. One day you may think and feel in certain way and another day this may change completely. This self reflection serves as the basis for decision making. Turning the pages and going back to those states allows you to explore and question your feelings, eventually elevating your state of mind. Over a long period of time it’ll help you to grow as a person. You’ll find that the person writing the diary one year ago had a unique perspective of the world and over time you’ll be able to follow you mental growth as a person. It is also a great tool to save memories. Contrary to photos, you can tell a story and provide details a photo cannot capture.

I’d say you should get yourself a small notebook and a nice pen. A diary is a mental health tool which you can pick almost for free; but it can make you rich in lots of ways if you do it constantly.

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