Your Life Not Worth Recording?

People comment sometimes that they don't keep a journal because their lives are boring, ordinary, and nothing record-worthy ever happens. Is that you? Do you ever look a pretty journal and worry about defacing it with your mundane life? 

Well, if you won't listen to me about worthiness of anyone's life for journaling, I do hope you will listen to Mark Twain.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy. 

                         - Mark Twain 

Journaling Challenge - A Week In Your Life

I'm going to start a new journaling challenge, and I hope some of you (or maybe many of you) will join me.

We journal for different reasons and in different styles. I know that my journals include far more introspection, rather than facts and things that go on in my daily life. So I have decided to record a week of my life in minute detail.

So this will be what is generally a diary entry - logging things that happen. Actual events. People you meet, things you see, things you eat, time you go to bed....as many details as you wish.

That doesn't mean that you can include the usual things you journal. So for example, I will still no doubt include my introspection, my feelings about various things, lists and tasks and whatever else comes to mind. But the main thing to make sure is that you record your week as it truly happens, so that years from now when you look back at these entries, you will know exactly what this particular week was like.

Don't worry if it feels mundane. Most of us live through mundane days, but so did all the people whose lives we now find fascinating.

I will be happy to post excerpts from people's entries so feel free to send them to me.

The challenge will be for August 22 to August 28. It begins at midnight on August 21, and ends at Midnight on August 28. So entries for this challenge must be from this time period. I hope you will join in, and we can share this journey together, and share some of our entries or discuss how we found the experience, and what we learned if anything.

Journal Writing Prompt 25 - Curiosity

Today's prompt is Curiosity. 

Curiosity of mind. Curiosity of heart. Curiosity of life. Do you have it? Do you yearn for new knowledge, new experiences? If so, are you getting them? Journal about them.

Or are you comfortable just staying as you are now, with what you have, and not keen to get out of your comfort zone? Journal about why that might be.

Each of this topic has two sides - positive and negative. See how it affects you. Journal freely...don't worry about labels and headings and breaks. Just write: Curiosity, and then free write and see where your words take you.

Journal Writing Prompt 24 - Gratitude

We often think about all the things we would like to have in life, but today's prompt, let's focus on what we have.

What are you grateful for? It could be material items, like a comfortable house, enough food, nice clothes, a car. It could be emotional aspects - people who love you and care about you, friends who support you. It doesn't matter how little or how big these things are. Make a list of all the things that you are grateful for.

Count your blessings! And by the time you are done, your life will feel the richness of your life.

Journal Writing Prompt 23 - Here and Now

Focus on the present. Where are you right now in your life? You can journal about the physical location if you wish too, but think about your overall life. Are you happy in your present, or do you keep wishing for the past or the future? What would you like to change about your present? What you like to keep in it? 

We spend far too much time in non-present (or maybe it's just me), so let's bring our journals and our minds in here and now. Dig deeper. Dwell in the present. 

What Do You Use For Journal For?

I'm looking for nouns, quick phrases that describes why you journal. As soon as you read this, what popped in your head? 

Why do you journal? 

I journal to...

plan
focus
understand
ramble
vent
share
record

And I am sure there are other reasons, but these are the ones I thought at this moment.

What about you? Why do you keep a journal? 

Meet A Journal Keeper - Shane

I began journaling on January 1, 1991, my Freshman year in college. I don't know why I started. I just had an empty notebook and wrote "journal" on it and never looked back. I am so grateful I stumbled across this incredible pastime. I was 22 when I started and have been journaling for 20 years now. I love journals. I have been on the hunt for manly journals ever since I bought my first hard back journal. There's plenty of blank books with kitty cats and flowers, but I have to dig deep to find the type I like. I like nostalgic covers, preferably with superheroes or Peanuts characters. My journals must be hard back covers and ruled, not that I've never made an exception. I like the standard size journal. Too big and too small messes up the visual on the bookshelf.

What do I journal about? Life. When I first started, my entries were pretty boring, just giving the run down of my day, but I ended each one with a prayer. I look back on some of those expressions to God and am overwhelmed by how much I needed His assistance in life. Now I write out my prayers (still), observations from my Bible study, funny or poignant things my kids say, victories and failures (because you can learn from both), revelations about marriage, and just over all how I'm feeling. When I was single, I journaled a lot. I would fill a book in 2 months. Now that I'm married with three kids, I don't have the same gumption for writing as much as back then, but the passion is still there.

I have filled over 50 journals and have about 25 waiting for me. I never start a new one until I've finished the current one, which is really hard when I have a really cool one waiting for me, but it's a rule established early on and I've kept it. I'm proud to say I earned the title of "Notebook Addict of the Week" from Nifty over there at the website Notebook Stories, and never knew how obsessive my passion for journaling was until I wrote about it to get nominated. But it has been fun to find websites like this and people like me who are fellow "Journal Addicts."