Make your Journal your autobiography
I have the strong belief that every life’s story is worth telling. But this is all just theory. In practice, most life’s stories are never preserved. Honestly speaking, my own life is, to a certain extent, was different – until I made my journal my autobiography.
In retrospective, when thinking about tangible documentations that would be left of me once I am gone, which is inevitable, there is quite some written proof of what was important to me in life: there are two picture books about my university time in Taiwan and China, there are at least three travel journals alias travel-scrapbooks of my many trips around the world, and there are about 10 to 15 journals that I occasionally kept over the course of 25 years.
Looking back, these are extremely valuable to me and I love to browse through them, but except some diary-like journals, they tell little about my daily life through all of my life phases.
I only wrote when I was depressed and hopeless, but barely ever when life was just running smoothly. I never understood what journals, that are truly yours, really are: autobiographical works.
Biography is a big word and saying “I am writing my autobiography”, when you are maybe only 25 years old, might get you some weird looks. However, in it’s core, it’s nothing more than writing down your life. You can do that when you are 70, but honestly, how many details will you remember if you haven’t kept any notes throughout your life? And what if it’s too late then and you are already dead or lost most of your memory? Not to be dramatic or dark, but let’s face it – that’s what happens to people all the time.
We tend to think that we have plenty of time left and then, one day, we are gone and never even started the things we postponed to when we are old and “have the time”.
My call to everyone is: fill your journals with your life’s story in whatever way you want to express yourself! Make your journals a keepsake that represent your life, for you and maybe for those you have to leave behind some day. Make your journal your autobiography, do it for your kids or do it for yourself, or do it for historians that want to reconstruct our times 100 years from now!
In recent years, journaling has been promoted as a way to get your s**t together, to plan out your days and reach your goals. Journaling became an art form and appearance has become more important than content.
Although a beautiful journal is an uplifting thing to look at, I want to keep more memories from my life than just the visual design skills I had at the time.
Someday, someone will be grateful you left a trace of your existance on paper. Not digital, but tangible.
So long – keep journaling,
Viktoria
