Keeping the diary has a bit of that charm of yesteryear and in the collective imagination write a diary is connected to the stereotype of retro people and out of time.
In fact, if we watch movies or read books set in the past, we often see the characters struggling with the writing of their own thoughts and agonies, as well as scientists and scholars meticulously cataloguing their discoveries.
Journaling and social media
In the modern era, all this has been somewhat lost as well as the idea that the diary is a great ally in personal growth, extremely versatile for all uses and benefits it can bring.
Some might even argue that all of us now keep journals full of information in social media, but can these be considered true journals since we expose ourselves to other people and therefore their judgement?
Do we really write on social media our bare thinking or do we always try to give a better version of ourselves, which sometimes is not exactly the reality that we are?
This is an interesting debate, which does not take away the value of keeping a personal diary, that without exposure to the outside can really tell about us.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Oscar Wilde
Keeping the diary, therefore, has many benefits, of which I will report later, but as I mentioned it is a multifaceted tool. We can keep a diary to record the important activities of the day, our thoughts, our successes, what we ate, how we slept or what we would like to do the next day. In short, there is plenty of possibility of diaries as long as you want and everyone brings numerous benefits.
Solid reasons for keeping a diary
1. Improvement of intimate life. This may seem so much like a thing for women who suffer and cannot express their feelings. It’s not so, because we all have areas or thoughts that we want to express only in a safe environment and what better place than the blank pages of a diary? To write the diary is therefore a training for our minds to put our thoughts in order as that they are written. This is a wonderful process that allows us to have more clarity and to find a place for all the thoughts that often circulate in our heads without stopping just because confused. The diary is therefore a means of ordering, analysing, understanding and letting go of some of these thoughts.
2. To know ourselves better. We all struggle between who we really are and who we want to be. This swing is a repetitive process that is definitely impacting at the energy level and very often also on the emotional one. Writing the diary can be a way of exploring the parts of ourselves that we’re less aware of. In fact, writing helps this process, because the conscious activity of writing unites with the unconscious activity of thinking. Knowing ourselves better in the end is the first step towards a complete acceptance of us and therefore a more serene life.
3. Better memorise our experiences. The act of writing, being slower than thinking, allows us to pause to analyse situations and events, create links and in this way cement our knowledge. How many times do we forget something we wouldn’t have forgotten if we had just taken a written note? Use your diary to record and store your notes.
4. Keep track of progress. How many times do we think we have not made progress in a particular area of our life despite our efforts and suddenly we find a photo, a person, an event that reminds us of how far we have started and how far we have come! All frustration is erased immediately! Keeping a diary is therefore an effective method to keep track of your progress and also take responsibility for “not progress”! Not to progress should not be taken as a negative symptom, the failure of a strategy, but as another moment of growth: the awareness that what we are doing is not leading us in the right direction and therefore it is time to review our strategies and habits.
5. Don’t miss out on any ideas. You’ve never had a great idea and then forget about it a few hours later. Thanks to your personal diary you can keep track of anything that comes to your mind: your diary is there to gather your ideas (strange as they may be) quietly and without judgement.
The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.
Edvard Munch
Final thoughts
As you understand the advantages of the diary can be many because it is an object that facilitates thought. Just like the device you’re using to read this post, that too is something built by man that helps you think. And this is one of our specifications as “humans”, that of knowing how to build complex artefacts that extend our potential. It is therefore time to re-offer the diary and make it again part of our days and our friend in our path of continuous growth!
Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.
Anne Frank