Journaling to Remember Events

I have found a great way to counteract this. It is a personal habit I've learned known as "journaling". You may have heard of journaling before - it's similar to keeping a diary.

In fact, in some dictionaries (such as the dictionary at wordnet.princeton.edu), the definition is exactly the same:

Definition of "journal": a diary; a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations.

Young people may be tuning me out at this point, but I hope they don't. Now that I am a bit older (pushing 40), I really wish I had started my journaling at a younger age. I did start my journal over ten years ago, thankfully, on January 1, 1996 as part of a New Year's Resolution.

I think journaling is different from keeping a diary in terms of focus. I always pictured a diary as something a teenager keeps to write down private thoughts about feelings and relationships. A journal can have some of that, but the focus (at least for me) is more toward the world around me.

For example, if I travel to visit the Great Meteor Crater in Arizona, I'll write down the things I did there, what my impressions of the place was like, and my thoughts about the significance of the trip, and so on. Much of my journal is internal, but much external too. I haven't really recorded much that would embarrass anyone. No gossip, for example.

The purpose of the journal is to write down the things that I want to be able to remember 10, 20, 30, or more years from now. The special experiences of a lifetime, preserved on those pages. I'd like to think that some day my grandchildren or great-grandchildren might like to read it.

Of course, having written hundreds of pages over the years, I have developed a certain style and pattern, even in the materials I use, that seems to work well. Here's a page from my journal as an example:

Example of Journal Layout/Structure

As time permits, I will begin sharing my journaling techniques with you on this website to help give you leapfrog ahead and avoid some of the pitfalls.

The Benefits of Journaling

Journaling is a way of preserving the memories of events against the ravages of time and forgetfulness. Try thinking back to some of the important events in your own life. Do you really think you remember all the little details - the people's names, the little things that happened or even all the big experiences you had?

If you are a careful observer, you'll notice that something important and/or special happens nearly every day of your life. You might meet someone for the first time who later has a big impact on you; you might see a beautiful sunrise or sunset; someone might do something kind for you or vice versa; you might take a special trip or vacation; the list is endless. The only way to really preserve the most important of these experiences is to write them down. To do this is to "keep a journal".

This is the quote that was my wake-up call to journaling:

A life worth living is worth recording.

I'm not sure who said that originally, but it really struck a cord when I heard it. And journaling really does have something to do with memory - quite a lot, over the course of a lifetime.

Just think about it. That's all I'm saying.

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