Rediscovering Journaling Through Stoic Reflection

How a Stoic Twist on Journaling Transformed My Perspective on Life and Happiness

The image of Marcus Aurelius is in the public domain

I am 20 years old now and I never wrote a single word in a diary or any journal. In fact I never kept a diary. But I always wanted to.

I always wanted to keep a diary and write in it every day. To write my heart out, or any particular event which either made me sad or happy.

Or to write about when I laughed the most and when I cried the most. I always wanted to do something of this sort.

I also wanted to keep a diary so that I could read what I felt and thought in my previous years. We all have fantasies of that sort. No shame in that.

But I never did that. To be honest, there were many reasons. I felt like a little child who can’t face life and its events and he runs away from it through the pages of his diary.

I thought of writing in a diary as a habit of incorporating productivity and happiness into my life. This very thought never allowed me to write a diary.

I thought that I had to keep a diary so that I could run away from the harsh and unfortunate events of my life by writing them in my diary and to save the moments of happiness forever.