Why You should Keep a Diary or a Journal

The Story Of Charles Lidenberg : 

Diaries, the ultimate in personal writing, can sometimes lead to writing that is the most widely read of all. Such was the case for Anne Morrow Lindbergh in the 1950s.

Taking a break from her difficult marriage to Charles Lindbergh and from her hectic family obligations, this dedicated diarist took some days for herself in a remote cottage on Florida’s Gulf Coast. There her reflections, initially written only for herself, eventually came to print in 1955 in a short book titled Gift from the Sea. It became one of the bestselling books of the century, striking a responsive chord with American women on the eve of the feminist movements of the 1960s.

 It means that each day is something more. At least you’ve done something to make it stay by putting something down.

The Story Of Irving :

While Anne Lindbergh was reflecting near a warm sea, an ambitious young reporter was covering the Cold War from inside Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, for the new medium of television. With his serious reporting on NBC and ubiquitous bow tie, Irving R. Levine became a television icon to a generation of Americans.

Irving has kept a diary and personal correspondence dating back to the 1940s. He recently re-read some old letters, finding things he had totally forgotten until he relived them half a century later.

"I have a letter describing my trip over to Europe the first time, on the Queen Elizabeth, and striking up an acquaintance with an Eva Pawlik, who was an Olympic skater, and then having dinner with her in Paris. I had forgotten that," he said in a recent interview.

This former newsman is a fast typist, and these days he writes his diary on the computer before printing it out. His diary also serves a metaphysical purpose.

"It means that each day is something more. At least you’ve done something to make it stay by putting something down. I like grabbing the day in some form."

The Story Of Darlene Kostrub:

"I tell people to keep a five-year journal, and nobody values it until they do."–Darlene Kostrub

Darlene Kostrub, the executive director of the Palm Beach County (Florida) Literacy Coalition, keeps several journals, each by hand. They are an important part of what keeps her centered in her busy professional and family life. She keeps a regular diary (usually starting a new one each year), a gratitude journal for occasional lists of what she is thankful for, and a book of days, sometimes called a five-year journal. This last kind of journal devotes just a few lines for each day, and each page holds entries for that same day for five years.

Of her book of days, Darlene explains: "I only put something there if it’s significant—when somebody dies, is married, if my kids broke up with somebody, or where we spend our family birthdays or the Fourth of July. I can tell you where we were and what we did."

Each year, on her close friend’s birthday, the two of them go out to celebrate. This year Darlene told her friend what they had done for each of the last five birthdays, "She couldn’t believe it. She was really impressed; it was gone from her mind," Darlene says. "I tell people to keep this kind of journal, and nobody values it until they do."

It’s not too late to start your own journal. No matter how little you write, or how irregularly, it can yield rewards in the coming years that will be worth far more to you than the minutes you invest in it today.

They say a friend is a gift you give yourself. So is a journal.