Reasons To Keep A Diary

If you're female, chances are at one point you've had a diary. Or if you're male, you may have had one too. I'm not trying to be sexist, I'm just not sure how many people of male species keep diaries, (although male vampires seem particularly fond of them). Either way, if you can write, you can keep a diary, and there are many benefits to doing so.

1. You have a record of your life. You may be like, "oh, yeah, big deal. I got a record of my life." But what people don't realize, is you're not going to remember the individual days that well. You probably have a good idea of what you did last week, and the week before that, but how about March when you were twelve? Odds are you'll remember big things, but it may be interesting to look back on your life when you're a lot older, and see how your younger self used to think, and how things have changed.

2. If you're a writer, you can use pieces of your diary to make a story. Not everyone will do this, but if creative writing is your thing, you may want to create a character based on yourself, and taking excerpts from your diary is one way to do this. You also may have a really dramatic diary that is just waiting to be published, or even made into a TV series. Remember, you never know where something could take you.

3. Writing in a diary can help you sort out your life. Sometimes, when you are overwhelmed you can't think clearly and you don't know what to do. But writing in a diary can help you put it all on paper, and can help you see what is going on inside your head, instead of just trying to keep everything inside. Not everyone's mind will work this way, but if yours does, this can be a big help to you.

4. Writing can be your outlet when there is no one else there to listen. Sometimes, we get upset for various reasons, but don't want to tell anyone about our problems, or have no one to tell them to. Instead of keeping them bottled up inside, writing them down in a diary can be a good way to get them out, and to let go of them. It's true that you're not telling a real person, but it will feel like you're telling someone, or will at least help you sort through why you're so upset, as you'll be able to see it on paper, and could even read it over later when you are thinking clearly.

5. You can use them to record your dreams. Often times people use separate diaries for these and call them dream journals. But if you're not into that, or only record your dreams once in a while, you can keep them in one journal/diary. Whether or not you record your dreams is up to you, but sometimes they will have significance to your waking life and you can use them to figure out problems that you couldn't quite get while you were awake. Or if you don't believe they have any significance at all, you can record them anyway and make a creative piece out of them. It would not be the first time that dreams have been used for something creative.

I keep a diary myself and use it for a lot of these things, and I find it helpful. You don't have to write in your diary everyday unless you want to, but just whenever you feel the urge, or perhaps once a week if you're trying to make a habit of it.

What are some reasons you write in your diary?

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