14 Keep A Journal

There are few events in life that are large enough to be a true quantum shift in our worldview. First love, first betrayal, first real job, first serious health issue, job loss, divorce, career change, birth of a child, death in the family… that kind of stuff. These are things that represent a major change in lifestyle or in outlook. Becoming an expat certainly falls in that category.

Change at that level, even when it is a carefully chosen, beneficial change, still generates some feelings of discomfort. Part of it is due to the inevitable uncertainty as we set out to explore this new continent. But part of it is because we are disturbing the homeostasis that acts as a biological gyroscope, resisting changes to our body. Jet lag is only the tip of that iceberg. Then there is the cultural homeostasis to keep us from being forced to think too much. Becoming an expat is a long and interesting – sometimes bumpy - transformation. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to preserve the experience with a daily journal?

If you are considering becoming an expat – or are in any stage of the process – I urge you to keep a daily record of your activities, observations, conclusions, and, especially, of how you feel during all of the above. You don’t have to wait until you are walking through the arrival airport. Why not record all your thoughts, experiences, reservations, starts and restarts, and reflections throughout the process? It is easy enough; very satisfying, too. You can choose the medium most suitable for you. A pencil and a paper notebook were enough for Hemingway but most people will use a modern laptop with a word processor and large memory. That also makes it convenient to save correspondence, both sent and received. If you wish to travel light, you can get a small wireless keyboard to save your words onto your smartphone. Another option is to “go audio”. Buy an inexpensive handheld voice recorder. It is smaller than a pack of cigarettes so it truly is convenient to carry 24/7. You can thus record your journal anytime, even in segments of only a few seconds, then save the experience in digital form. You can keep audio or video files in their original format and save everything for reviewing at any time. Another option, if you go this digital route, is to get voice-to-text transcriber software to instantly and accurately convert those audio files of your spoken words to words on a screen. Your words, your journal; it’s your choice of the means.

If, years after the actual event, you use your journals to vividly recall details and sensations of the moment, it will be some of the most interesting reading you will ever experience because it will be you revisiting your experiences and reliving your thoughts. Talk about time travel!

One of the books regarded as a classic of modern literature is Walden. This famous book was based upon the daily journal entries of Henry David Thoreau as he sat in his tiny cabin on the shores of Walden Pond. When I was still in the pondering and exploring stage of my personal exodus, I kept a daily journal, including correspondence, which became the foundation for my memoir, China Bound. These days, when I read China Bound, I get lots of very pleasant flashbacks.

As examples of the wide range of journalistic styles from which you can choose, here are a few samples from my own diary entries and blog articles:

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Recently, a couple of incidents have stirred up lots of old memories for me. Discovering lost journals from years ago started a flood of recollections. They were time capsules just waiting to be opened so they could release a torrent of images and associations - and a deeper appreciation for the good things I have today.

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Last week, a friend sent a photo from his past of him – much younger! – and his beloved cat from that time. I wrote to him, “That started me thinking about the dogs and cats, parakeets and aquariums from my own past life. Isn’t it wonderful and a little overwhelming when we start down the rabbit hole of memories of pets from our past? They serve as an anchor to different times and places, and those memories are invariably associated with happier and simpler times. (At least, they seem that way in our memories.)”

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Another experience was when I was sifting through some of my storage bins and found old diaries. I had kept trip journals of some of my travels back to my hometown in America and other locations. Again, they stirred lots of old memories as I was transported back to the people, events, sensations, and places I had written about in those entries.

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Do you keep a diary? What about making notes when you are on a trip? Do you publish your journal/diary/log on the internet so the world can read your thoughts? (Remember that the origin of the word “blog” is “world wide web log”.) Or you can keep everything private and for your personal pleasure when you review them. It definitely is a warm feeling to read your own words in a journal and, in the process, to relive the actions and feelings of the time when you wrote those words.

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Yet another facet of journaling is to make daily entries to record your progress on a particular project or new activity. I call it “living your life 100 days at a time”. Keeping a journal during those 100-day sprints serves as both a record and as a motivator, a reminder to stay on-plan for the full 100 days.

Or…something that I incorporated into my daily routine a couple of years ago is a “gratitude journal”. Each day, I write down at least three things that I am grateful for that day. They can be big things or little things; it doesn’t matter. The objective is to get us thinking about positive aspects of our lives instead of focusing entirely on current problems, challenges, and negative developments. If you look at the news we absorb from the television, social networks, internet news sites, and other mediums, it is almost uniformly bad, filled with negative and sensationalized events guaranteed to stir our emotions – but not in a good way. From this background noise, it is easy to believe the world is a dangerous and violent place, much worse than it really is. Wouldn’t it be far better for our mental health and our expectations – and our relationships with the people around us – if we balanced this negative flood with a conscious attempt to appreciate some of the many good things in our life? A fine beginning to our day is found by simply writing down three things we are grateful for. They don’t have to be big, important things; it is enough to think of little things that make our life more pleasant or comfortable or things that were not available to us in the past. My morning coffee, Beethoven softly playing to cover the early morning city noise, and the joys of creating something on a computer screen from nothing more than my thoughts as the synapses begin firing up for the day are plenty to be grateful for. My two sleeping roommates (wife and son) who work so hard to ensure my biological and cultural homeostasis is undisturbed even as they ensure it is not always peaceful – that’s a lot to be grateful for, also.

Gratitude entries can even be a little silly. For example:

I have just finished my daily exercises. I hate to exercise so I am always relieved when they are done for the day. (Then I don’t have to exercise again until tomorrow.) Actually, I am grateful for three different reasons. 1) Grateful that they are over and I don’t have to do them again until tomorrow. 2) Grateful also that I am still capable of doing those exercises. Lots of people cannot. 3) Finally, I am grateful that I am still alive to do those exercises. Some of my friends have already passed on so I should appreciate the good health I have currently.

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Long ago, John Waller Hills offered a glimpse into the soul of a writer when he penned (literally with a pen on paper, in his case) the words that lurk unbidden in the breast of every writer, “I hope there are some readers whom this book will interest. As I have written it, and still more as I have read over what I have written, I have been appalled at the thought that it was of no interest to anyone.” Mr. Hills, long deceased, can rest assured that he still speaks for all writers. But, when you write in a personal journal, you can be certain that your words will be of great interest to you if no one else. 

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So, what about you? Do you keep a journal in either paper or digital form? Do you share it with others? Is it important for you to capture your actions and feelings to be able to recall them some day in the future? What about a gratitude journal? What are three things you are grateful for today? What about your correspondence? What about a daily progress report on your current project? Think of all these as digital time capsules.

You may not create another Walden. You may not care to share your thoughts publicly; that’s your choice. But I assure you that, in the future, you will read your personal journal entries with many a rueful smile. You may not create another Walden - but you might.