Here I am. Just me. Why am I here? Well, I'd like to weed out some of the foolish and unnecessary endeavors which I undertake and which waste my time and energy to no purpose.
Let's talk about journaling, the pros and cons of. I do find it useful to keep a record of major events that take place in life so as to be able to look back and know when said events took place. I kept a semi-faithful diary for many years, mostly when I was a teenager. This served as an excellent outlet but I have not needed to retrace my steps. In fact I've, a time or two, nearly obliterated the written record of that journey, but have not managed to convince the self to follow through with said obliteration.
I don't like reading my old diaries. Reading them leads, inevitably, to horror and negative self talk, a demonic parent that provokes the screaming and the running. It also provokes the slamming shut of dusty old tomes.
Why have I not discarded my old diaries? This is a question I've been asking myself for years. I've stopped journaling on paper for the most part. Which adds another question: Why have I stopped journaling on paper?
Why have I kept my diaries? Sentimentality. I can easily discard any object if it is something I can replace by purchasing another. I can get a new set of cookie cutters, a new roll of tape or even a new refrigerator. If I obliterate my journals, there is no way to bring them back, should I later regret the decision. I believe this is the main reason for my hesitancy. I certainly don't plan to use them to turn myself into some sort of Anne Frank. My life is unremarkable, in that it has not yet tragically ended. I'm no longer young, so there's little fear now of that. People will not speak of me and say, "She was so young. What a tragedy. Let's see what she had to say in her diary." Were I to die this year, I would just be some thirty-year-old. Maybe a little young, but not remarkably so. I can safely say I have not saved my diaries in thread-bare hope of becoming famous.
Why have I stopped journaling on paper? Laziness, I think. It is easier to type. My hands are starting to feel a bit of arthritis and tapping doesn't bother them as much as gripping a pen. I have waffled back and forth a bit. Part of me misses the texture of the page, the smell and the personality of handwritten thoughts. A blog feels less personal, which is partly why I've taken the time to create graphics for this blog that are handmade. I feel more connected to the blog when I see my handwriting and drawings. I know they aren't astonishing works of art, but they are mine. These make the blog feel less cold, by giving it touches of home, if you will. In the past I've worried about people reading my diary, which is foolish. I know I'm not important enough to warrant scrutiny. If I don't give the link out, no one can find it. I'm anonymous because I don't use my real name. I should have no fears of being vocal in this arena. Maybe now that I've figured these things out I will stick with one mode of writing and discard the others.
One big advantage to online blogging is that I don't have to buy a lot of paper and waste it. The internet has probably saved a lot of trees. ::spends several minutes reading about it on the internet::
Not that this has stopped me from buying paper. I'm obsessed with paper. I've got to be honest. I have donated at least one or two large boxes of empty journals and other bound volumes. I see something cute, I buy it, I never fill it. So I went through what I had on hand, and I got rid of my empty journal collection. All but one or two favorite volumes. One that I kept has a leather cover that I can put on any empty journal of the appropriate size. The other is styled after the happy planners with plastic rings that can be refilled with papers. It is full of the cube-paper, I don't know what else to call it. The kind engineers use. I just use it to keep track of passwords or other lists.
I said goodbye to all the mickey mouse journals, and all the beautiful fake leather journals from Walmart that are now peeling because they are so old. I tossed all the beautiful clipboards that I never found a purpose for. I really am trying a new thing. I'm trying to not buy anything unless I have a plan for it and only if I don't have anything similar that will serve the same purpose.
This brings me to my current thought problem. I have a happy planner. It's beautiful. I'm going to post a picture of it so you can agree with me. It's a honey trap - all the beautiful things. So hard to resist. I have the planner, the stickers, the washi tape and the time to fill it in. The problem is that I really don't have anything to say. Not enough anyway. I have appointments to write in and once or twice a month something big happens. "Put house up for sale." Something like that.
Planners don't work very well to keep track of history. That's my opinion. Twenty years from now I could have a tall stack of planners. When did I put that house up for sale the first time? ::spends three hours looking through pages to find the answer:: It's easier just to keep a document on the internet that is a list of all the major events of my life. Each new event gets added at the bottom and there's a handy search function where I can type in "house." What if there's a crash and I lose everything? That used to be a real thing in the nineties. I'm living in 2019 and there are back ups for our back ups. Maybe the real concern is why am I trusting multi-billion dollar corporations to manage my personal data. I guess that's why my password list only has part of the passwords listed. The rest is embedded in my brain. I trust, but not completely.
Maybe it's time to give up planning. Planning is great for people with five kids, a teaching job and after school activities to keep up with. I'm just not that person. I have one husband and a cat. He's clever but I'm not paying for dance lessons. Once again, an online calendar makes more sense. I can keep track of everything that matters in one place. I can plan ahead. I can set my schedule to repeat, repeat, repeat so I don't have to keep writing out the routine of my day on each new page. I can get reminders and alarms set up so I don't miss important deadlines.
School is coming up. In a month I'm starting the nursing program. I keep a small desk. The less clutter I have on it, the better. I'll have less clutter if I am less one planner. It's sad though because I've had this planner sitting around for several months waiting, waiting, waiting for the old one to run out so I can start using it. It has perfect places in the weekly section where I could glue in photos, if anything interesting ever happened. Of course, if anything interesting happens, I will be too busy to craft it into the planner. Three weeks later when things calm down, I will notice and be sad, and not remember what we did or in what order we did it. The blank places won't get filled. They never do.
Here's where I face the guilt. For some reason I think less of myself because I have a million interests and don't follow through on them. Which is why I'm here trying to eliminate things. I shouldn't feel guilty because I take on too much. I know people who live life and have one hobby and are perfectly happy to leave it at that. There's no reason why I should feel I have to do everything. When I say everything, I do mean that quite literally. Write a best seller, do photography, paint, read, keep a journal, keep a planner, blog, vlog, make my cat famous... the list could go on forever.
Imagine if I had children. I wouldn't have time for all these things that I "have" to do. I'd never get anything done. Maybe this is why people have kids. Children talk so much and demand so much attention that it blocks out the thoughts the parent would normally be having. Life slips away blissfully and no one has time to regret that they didn't travel more or write about their feelings. Not until the end of life, then all the regrets come bubbling out of them. I could be wrong.
So I have this planner here that I've started. I'm only one month into it and I'm already thinking about giving up. It gets worse.
I have another cute planner for when I get done with this one. Heaven help me.
Let's talk about journaling, the pros and cons of. I do find it useful to keep a record of major events that take place in life so as to be able to look back and know when said events took place. I kept a semi-faithful diary for many years, mostly when I was a teenager. This served as an excellent outlet but I have not needed to retrace my steps. In fact I've, a time or two, nearly obliterated the written record of that journey, but have not managed to convince the self to follow through with said obliteration.
I don't like reading my old diaries. Reading them leads, inevitably, to horror and negative self talk, a demonic parent that provokes the screaming and the running. It also provokes the slamming shut of dusty old tomes.
Why have I not discarded my old diaries? This is a question I've been asking myself for years. I've stopped journaling on paper for the most part. Which adds another question: Why have I stopped journaling on paper?
Why have I kept my diaries? Sentimentality. I can easily discard any object if it is something I can replace by purchasing another. I can get a new set of cookie cutters, a new roll of tape or even a new refrigerator. If I obliterate my journals, there is no way to bring them back, should I later regret the decision. I believe this is the main reason for my hesitancy. I certainly don't plan to use them to turn myself into some sort of Anne Frank. My life is unremarkable, in that it has not yet tragically ended. I'm no longer young, so there's little fear now of that. People will not speak of me and say, "She was so young. What a tragedy. Let's see what she had to say in her diary." Were I to die this year, I would just be some thirty-year-old. Maybe a little young, but not remarkably so. I can safely say I have not saved my diaries in thread-bare hope of becoming famous.
Why have I stopped journaling on paper? Laziness, I think. It is easier to type. My hands are starting to feel a bit of arthritis and tapping doesn't bother them as much as gripping a pen. I have waffled back and forth a bit. Part of me misses the texture of the page, the smell and the personality of handwritten thoughts. A blog feels less personal, which is partly why I've taken the time to create graphics for this blog that are handmade. I feel more connected to the blog when I see my handwriting and drawings. I know they aren't astonishing works of art, but they are mine. These make the blog feel less cold, by giving it touches of home, if you will. In the past I've worried about people reading my diary, which is foolish. I know I'm not important enough to warrant scrutiny. If I don't give the link out, no one can find it. I'm anonymous because I don't use my real name. I should have no fears of being vocal in this arena. Maybe now that I've figured these things out I will stick with one mode of writing and discard the others.
One big advantage to online blogging is that I don't have to buy a lot of paper and waste it. The internet has probably saved a lot of trees. ::spends several minutes reading about it on the internet::
Not that this has stopped me from buying paper. I'm obsessed with paper. I've got to be honest. I have donated at least one or two large boxes of empty journals and other bound volumes. I see something cute, I buy it, I never fill it. So I went through what I had on hand, and I got rid of my empty journal collection. All but one or two favorite volumes. One that I kept has a leather cover that I can put on any empty journal of the appropriate size. The other is styled after the happy planners with plastic rings that can be refilled with papers. It is full of the cube-paper, I don't know what else to call it. The kind engineers use. I just use it to keep track of passwords or other lists.
I said goodbye to all the mickey mouse journals, and all the beautiful fake leather journals from Walmart that are now peeling because they are so old. I tossed all the beautiful clipboards that I never found a purpose for. I really am trying a new thing. I'm trying to not buy anything unless I have a plan for it and only if I don't have anything similar that will serve the same purpose.
This brings me to my current thought problem. I have a happy planner. It's beautiful. I'm going to post a picture of it so you can agree with me. It's a honey trap - all the beautiful things. So hard to resist. I have the planner, the stickers, the washi tape and the time to fill it in. The problem is that I really don't have anything to say. Not enough anyway. I have appointments to write in and once or twice a month something big happens. "Put house up for sale." Something like that.
Planners don't work very well to keep track of history. That's my opinion. Twenty years from now I could have a tall stack of planners. When did I put that house up for sale the first time? ::spends three hours looking through pages to find the answer:: It's easier just to keep a document on the internet that is a list of all the major events of my life. Each new event gets added at the bottom and there's a handy search function where I can type in "house." What if there's a crash and I lose everything? That used to be a real thing in the nineties. I'm living in 2019 and there are back ups for our back ups. Maybe the real concern is why am I trusting multi-billion dollar corporations to manage my personal data. I guess that's why my password list only has part of the passwords listed. The rest is embedded in my brain. I trust, but not completely.
Maybe it's time to give up planning. Planning is great for people with five kids, a teaching job and after school activities to keep up with. I'm just not that person. I have one husband and a cat. He's clever but I'm not paying for dance lessons. Once again, an online calendar makes more sense. I can keep track of everything that matters in one place. I can plan ahead. I can set my schedule to repeat, repeat, repeat so I don't have to keep writing out the routine of my day on each new page. I can get reminders and alarms set up so I don't miss important deadlines.
School is coming up. In a month I'm starting the nursing program. I keep a small desk. The less clutter I have on it, the better. I'll have less clutter if I am less one planner. It's sad though because I've had this planner sitting around for several months waiting, waiting, waiting for the old one to run out so I can start using it. It has perfect places in the weekly section where I could glue in photos, if anything interesting ever happened. Of course, if anything interesting happens, I will be too busy to craft it into the planner. Three weeks later when things calm down, I will notice and be sad, and not remember what we did or in what order we did it. The blank places won't get filled. They never do.
Here's where I face the guilt. For some reason I think less of myself because I have a million interests and don't follow through on them. Which is why I'm here trying to eliminate things. I shouldn't feel guilty because I take on too much. I know people who live life and have one hobby and are perfectly happy to leave it at that. There's no reason why I should feel I have to do everything. When I say everything, I do mean that quite literally. Write a best seller, do photography, paint, read, keep a journal, keep a planner, blog, vlog, make my cat famous... the list could go on forever.
Imagine if I had children. I wouldn't have time for all these things that I "have" to do. I'd never get anything done. Maybe this is why people have kids. Children talk so much and demand so much attention that it blocks out the thoughts the parent would normally be having. Life slips away blissfully and no one has time to regret that they didn't travel more or write about their feelings. Not until the end of life, then all the regrets come bubbling out of them. I could be wrong.
So I have this planner here that I've started. I'm only one month into it and I'm already thinking about giving up. It gets worse.
I have another cute planner for when I get done with this one. Heaven help me.
Journal Crisis - A Meltdown In My Mouth
Reviewed by Samantha Jayne Frost
on
July 26, 2019
Rating:
Reviewed by Samantha Jayne Frost
on
July 26, 2019
Rating:
