My Journal Experience

For the last two months, I have been writing a journal. The purpose of the journal was to explore my creativity and myself. The main rule was to write for 10 minutes a day five times a week. As of now, two months later, I've written a total of 41 entries and one activity. The writing process has been an interesting journey. I've written about many things but they can all be categorized into a certain set of topics. I was able to express myself and express thoughts on paper that I might have never expressed out loud. In writing these sorts of things, I gained insight into myself. There was a particularly emotional subject and writing about it allowed me to overcome the situation.

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I've written about my day-to-day life, my opinions, my work, my studies, my stress, my training,  my personal frustrations and about some emotional situations. There are also a couple of entries without a central topic. They are just direct anecdotes about the thoughts that passed through my mind at the time. At first, my writing didn't “flow” very well. Even though I didn't stop writing to think about what I was going to write next, I did think about it as I wrote. Later on, my writing was very instinctive and my hand just moved, writing down the thoughts that passed through my mind. At first, I wanted to keep each journal entry enclosed in a certain topic. So I guess that’s why I’d think about what to write next, so as to not get side tracked. But then, as I kept writing, I wrote about whatever came to my mind at the moment and I usually didn't have time to sidetrack back into what I was saying. So on many occasions, I’d start writing and thinking that I was going to write about something specific, and end up writing about something else.

In a couple of entries, I naturally began rhyming and writing my sentences as if it were a poem. In a couple of other entries, I also had a few “funny sections” where I’d just write something that at least I’d think was funny. These kinds of things enhanced my creativity and allowed my ideas to flow. The flow of ideas is very important in the field of engineering, which is my major, and now I’m able to express my ideas as soon as they “pop” into my head without giving them a lot of thought. It might seem counter intuitive since you might just say something "stupid", but that’s part of the creative process in a group.

In writing, I learned hidden motivations, worries and insecurities that I might have played around with earlier but I never faced them directly. Since I had to keep writing, I was forced to confront these things that I had previously evaded. The idea that no one will ever read my journal is what allowed me to keep writing about these subjects. It was actually very liberating to get them off my chest and into writing. These made them real and not an abstract idea in my mind. By making them real, I was able to confront them. That, to me, is the most valuable thing gained from writing my journal.

There was a particularly emotional subject about which I wrote on two consecutive days followed by writing about it on the journal activity that I mentioned before. Writing about the subject allowed me to overcome the situation. I had been carrying the issue for a long time, so it’s a reel relief that I was able to overcome it. I had always thought that writing about it or sharing with a friend might have helped. Sharing with a couple of friends didn't help and I never got to the task of writing about it. Then, one day, I just began writing about it, and the next day as well. To me, it was unexpected and quite a relief.

I liked the experience of writing a journal and I’d like to keep doing so. However, I probably won’t, at least not immediately. I’ll probably write in the same manner from time to time, when I feel like I need to write and get something off my chest. But it will probably not be part of my day-to-day routine. I’d still recommend the journal writing experience to anyone interested in exploring who they are, and interested in achieving a more natural flow of ideas.