How did you spend your day yesterday? When was the last time you went to see a movie? Can you remember the plot line? What did you do on your last vacation? Did you enjoy a particular meal, or visit a special tourist site that meant something special to you? While none of the answers to these questions matter in the overall scheme of life, they are a part of your life, and may very well matter to you at some point in time.
Learning to journal our experiences, and the special events in our lives can teach us about the fluidity of daily situations, how they fit together, and how they impact each other. Through journaling our experiences we can make connections to and through the flow of our lives. Perhaps as a child you always spent Thanksgiving at your grandparents' house, saw aunts, uncles, cousins and assorted friends and neighbors around the holiday table. Although you enjoyed the experience, each Thanksgiving as an adult has a certain poignancy about it on which you just can't place your finger. Taking time to journal through the next Thanksgiving Day, the day after the festivities are complete, may help you make connections about your present feelings and how they are associated with the holiday. Did you have people come to your home this year, or did you visit someone else's home? Or maybe you gathered friends together and celebrated at a favorite restaurant, then came home for dessert. Was the day relaxed or stressful? Was the weather warm and bright, or cloudy and damp? Were you excited about the day, or dreading it for weeks prior? Now, you can start with these most recent experiences of the holiday, comparing and contrasting this day with all those yesterdays, remembering as much about those earlier holidays as possible, and see how the connections of feelings, thoughts and experiences reveal themselves to you. Connect your present to your past, fill in the blanks, and through the process you will come to understand and enjoy your life more fully.
When we talk about our days as a series of vignettes gathered into a group that create the whole, we begin to also see the weeks, months and years, and our lives, as woven together into a cohesive pattern, rather than time that has slipped through our hands like so much sand on a beach. We often wonder where time goes. In journaling your daily experiences you can see it all laid out before you with as much detail as you choose to embody it. Take a few moments and jot down everything you did yesterday. My guess is that you will discover some surprises in how you use your time, and in how you view the way you use your time. What have you automatically deleted from the list before your pen touched the page? How do you feel about your accomplishments? What would you like to exchange out as a "do over" for next time? How honest have you been with yourself about the events that are now part of your personal history?
Beyond getting you in the groove of recognizing how you manage your time and personal resources, journaling your daily life is effective in showing you parts of your life, in your own words, parts of your life of which you may not even be aware. Things like behavior patterns, personal preferences, relational triggers, what you avoid and what you embrace, are all issues that can arise and be tracked when you regularly journal your experiences. Thinking about your job after you leave work is almost inevitable, especially if you are unhappy with your circumstances or irritated with your co-workers. Sometimes the people we live with, love them though we do, are annoying, cranky and intrusive. Or, perhaps, it's all in our perception. When you write out these scenarios of the thorns that are perpetually in your side, you either begin to get really sick of hearing yourself repeat the same theme over and over, or you begin to recognize the patterns creating your responses, and you see how you can make different choices to create the reality you want. Journaling draws us to consciousness, which leads us to making our lives better places, if we want them to be.
The practice of growing familiar with regular journaling will serve you well in many ways. Vacations, special dinners, historical sites, and personal adventures, can be recalled and relived when written about as part of your daily life, or as individual vignettes to be cherished on their own. Journaling the experiences and events of your life is a tangible way to remember how well you have lived, and how well-lived you plan your present and future to be. Journaling affirms for each of us that we can only live our own life, so we may as well have a good, conscious time doing it.
About The Author
Cory L. Kemp
As an ordained minister I have worked in educational ministries in several congregations, as well as pastoring a congregation. My writing has focused on nonfiction essays and I have recently submitted a theological memoir for publication. My ministerial background and love of writing have combined to develop Creating Women Ministries, a website dedicated to encouraging theological dialogue, particularly among women, through workshops, journaling and personal spiritual development. My website can be found at http://www.creatingwomenministries.com, and I can be reached by email at creatingwomen@irun.com. My blog is located at http://creatingwomenministries.blogspot.com.
I love essays! I enjoy reading them, checking them, teaching my
students how to generate them, but most of all I enjoy writing them! You
want to ask why. I hope after reading my article you will understand. And
I so much believe that you will also fall in love with the incredible
world of essays. Let’s start our trip from a short background. The word
“essay” originated from French word “essai” which means “attempt, effort,
sketch”. And this translation reflects the essence of the task you are
assigned at your college. Really, it is your personal attempt to give a
challenging sketch on some engrossing issue. Unlike other academic
assignments, essay suggests freedom of your creative work. Its main
advantage is that you can write it on any topic, in any style. Essay is
your own point of view on something you have heard, read, seen etc. The
forefront of the essay is your personality, your thoughts, feelings and
your life position. You have a unique chance to enter a reasonable
controversy with other authors, as the teacher expects you to show your
erudition in the subject. However, you should remember that regardless
freedom of the writing process, it is not that easy at all. Because you
are expected to find an original and capturing idea (even in the
traditional context) and exceptional opinion on some problem.
The title of essay does not strictly depend on the essay topic: the
title can also serve as a starting point in your reflection; it can
express the relation of the whole and the parts. A free composition of
essay is subject to its inner logic, it is an emphasized position of the
author.
The style of the essay is marked by its aphoristic, paradoxical and
figurative character. To convey your personal perception of the world you
should: employ a lot of capturing examples, draw parallels, choose
analogies, use various associations. One of the characteristic features of
essay is the wide usage of numerous expressive means, such as metaphors,
parable and allegoric figures, symbols and comparisons. Your can enrich
and make your essay more interesting if you include in it: unpredictable
conclusions, unexpected turning points, interesting clutches of
events.Essay presents a dynamic interchange of author’s arguments,
supporting evidence and questions.
Be brief, but at the same time avoid absolute simplicity. No one will
like reading a monotonous narration. Completing the draft of your essay,
read it aloud, yes, aloud. You will be struck by the number of rough
details in your essay. You should get rid of them with no regret. If you
have to say something new, original and exclusive, then the genre of essay
is your genre. Be creative, free your mind and may be you will reveal a
great essayist in yourself.
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