Monday 16 September 2013

KEEPING A JOURNAL



Keeping a journal is certainly a good habit. A person maintains a journal from a young age. It becomes a hobby for him. It is one time of the day which we spend with ourselves, curling up in bed and recapitulating the events of the day.

 In the beginning, it is all exciting. Noting down each and every detail from getting up in morning and cuddling up with a book late at night. Describing silly things that we did in school and college days:

“Ah! She has come. Today my exam will go great!”

 “Helped out a friend with his girlfriend.”

 “Couldn’t talk to mom today, so she was in fire!”

 “Made an excuse at home and went out to hang out with friends.”

 The habit becomes irregular as we grow up. Then we only talk to diary during hard times. At other times it becomes very brief, listing important contacts and birth dates.

Whatever it is, we still keep the journal. We do not completely forego with it. With the changing times, we start typing and keep it in our computer or phone book. And it still exists recounting our times of failure and success. Year by year it gets piled up. But browsing through the pages we are taken to the times which we loved, to the times when we struggled and finally coming out of it in the end. It helps us to grow. It presents our true picture to ourselves. It doesn’t make us regret for the mistakes that we had committed but gives us an opportunity to learn from them and move on.

Journal makes one a confident person. It gives us faith, a feeling to love more and a chance to forgive. Maybe, someday this journal will go in a safe hand of one of our descendants. They will gain insight into things and events that they wouldn’t find in historical books, about a person’s history, a history that is relived through the yellow pages.   


GROW OLD WITH ME...

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

- Robert Browning: "Rabbi Ben Ezra"