Why do you need to keep a diary? Part 1

How keeping a journal helps to cope with difficulties, to develop creative abilities, gain confidence and better understand their place in life.

It is surprising that such a simple thing as a personal journal, can be simultaneously a creative lab, a caring therapist, a source of memories, self-development tool, and most importantly — a safe refuge where you can be totally honest with others and with yourself. Even more amazing that all these qualities are not often aware of even those who once tried to make regular entries in their notebooks, notebooks and diaries.

The journal is not barren of soul-searching. It wasn’t a class designed exclusively for young girls and Teens that want to understand their feelings and sentimental experiences. And it’s not just the Prosecutor’s business capture events that happened to you this past day.

Wrong also to think that keeping a journal meant only for the outstanding people who “have something to say”. It is true that among the famous writers, scientists or artists it’s hard to find someone who wasn’t taking notes, intended only for themselves. But even if you do not claim to be a genius, this is not a reason to abandon this beneficial practice. In addition, there is always a chance that you are still a genius and many years after your death, the heirs will receive for publishing your diary a substantial fee.

To the most banal incident turned into an adventure, and you need enough of it to tell. Every man is always a teller of stories, he lives surrounded by stories, friends and foes, and all that happens to him, he sees through the prism. So he tries to fit his own life story about her.

Write diaries in order to write, to read and reread. Here are some answers to ask the question “what is it?”:

• to pour out on paper and realize those feelings that you can’t trust others;
• to understand what you want from life;
• to understand just how your plans meet reality, and whether you’re moving to implement them;
• to better understand other people and learn how to take into account their point of view;
• to train in the expression of their thoughts and to learn to reason;
• to recognize and change harmful thought habits and behavioral patterns;
• to develop intuitive thinking and creativity.

Below you will find brief guidance on how you can use the diary to achieve all of these goals. They are based on others’  speculation and published diaries and from his own experience.

What to write about

Who am I? A sheet of paper, which “will endure” — almost the only place in the world where you can be yourself. Said this may be too categorical: in the end, each person is multifaceted and needs in different contexts for its implementation. But honesty and openness achievable in the diary, very rarely available to us in other spheres of life.

The diary to reflect on your past and make plans for the future. It is a well-known exercise: try to imagine what kind of life you would like to keep using 5/10/15 years? Then relate what you are doing now with their long-term intentions. If the images do not converge, it may be time to change something. This practice follows the procedure of recording.

If you think about the future, the gaps between dream and reality smoothed out. In the recording they show through clearly.

If you don’t know what you want to do in this world, the diary will help you to come closer to understanding their strengths and deep intentions. Record in the diary what brings you joy and cause genuine interest. People with head immersed in the business may suddenly realize that, under a business mask always lurked the soul of a poet. The diary will give him the opportunity to develop this side of his personality, not forgetting about the others.

If you keep a diary for several years, if you reread you will open up your personality dynamics. How to change your priorities and values? What was important then and what remains now? So keeping a journal helps you see your life as a whole, albeit incomplete picture. The diary brings unity and duration into a series of broken moments, in this “every moment carries with it the burden of all previous and the germ of all subsequent”.

Two years did not write the diary and thought that will never return to this childishness. And it was not childish, but a conversation with yourself, so true, divine self which lives in every human being. All this time I was sleeping and I didn’t have anyone to talk to.

With “the real me”, maybe Leo is a little overkill. The diary does not remove all social masks, because that’s impossible. But it helps to understand which of them fits you better. Possibly, this understanding will lead to a change of masks, a change of personality. As he wrote in his diary Susan Sontag, “masking their behavior, I’m not defending his personality — I overcome it”. The right way to change something is to understand how it works. The diary not only captures what is happening around you; he changes its owner. Usually for the better.