This is a little bunny sketch I ran across in a hiking journal I was keeping a few years ago. The original was an ink drawing. I thought it would be fun to recreate it in color.
In looking back on that journal, I realized how many events make up our lives. Most of them small and insignificant. Yet, it felt good to be able to recall them and read about them. They were still in my memory but untouched since the day I wrote about them. Reading about them brought them back to the front burner in my mind.
My conclusion is that journaling is a good thing. At times, it can seem a chore or even beg the question, “why am I doing this?” But now I know why it should be done. So you can know where you’ve been and thus know where you’re going.
Reading about your activities from a year or more back can give you insight on where you are today. It makes you realize how bigger events, those that took place since the entries you’re reviewing, shape your life. Sometimes you decide you don’t like it that you got reshaped. You see that maybe it wasn’t so good that you let that happen. You re-think. You adjust. You better yourself.
Had it not been for the journaling, and the reviewing of it, you might have simply remained “un-better”.
Oh, and by the way, once you get the hang of it, journaling is fun.
2 Comments
I wish I had been more diligent in my journaling endeavors as a kid. I treasure the sketchbooks that I do have because they contain so many memories.
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for the comments and for visiting! I’m glad you recognize the value of journaling too. That’s a good thing.
I believe that most of what a kid does is at the behest of others. Be it T.V., peers, friends, or parents. Since T.V., peers, and friends are missing the boat on directing kids down the avenue of intelligent behavior and useful observation, it’s up to the parents.
My parents were as good as gold but they gave very little direction toward how to think creatively and outside the box. Nor how to use the tools of thinking. I don’t fault them for that of course. They were not guided either and both had government grammar and high school educations.
So, parental love in abundance, but guidance lacking, it’s taken 30 years to overcome what I did not learn in my own education. I read somewhere that most of our adult life is spent overcoming our childhood. That rocky road can be eliminated with USEFUL education and insight from loving, thinking, aware parents.
Journals are a thinking tool. They are VERY valuable in that regard. They force one to think privately. Many, many people do not think and ponder much at all. I think it pains them to not have answers
After all, we’re programmed that to not have answers is to fail.
Journaling causes one to realize what they do know, and what they don’t know. The wise person sets out to learn what they realize they don’t know.
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