A favor you can do for your future self--Keep a journal

While I was searching for an old set of speakers two days ago, I found the little black book in the picture at left. 

It's a fairly detailed journal from October 1, 2006 through December 13, 2007 that I had forgotten about.  And it's a Godsend.

I've been thinking a great deal about the man I was before whoever I am now.  And this book gave me many of the clues I needed.

Who was I?  I was leading a fast-paced, but more balanced life back then.  I was reading a lot and all of it substantive.  I was going to weekly parties and events and enjoying them. I was getting exercise because I was a founding member of the Grizzlies Rugby Football Club.   I was dating and doing things that were less than dating.  I started a good, long-term relationship that has since ended well in an important friendship.  I was active at Church, frequently teaching classes.  My volunteering life was off the chain.

Those were the good parts and those are things I will consider exploring again.

The bad parts weren't devastating, but they weren't easy.  I was enduring ongoing verbal and psychological abuse from some folks who seemed to be friends without really seeing it.  But to read it all now in day after day of entries, it's clear as daylight what was going on.  

I was also dealing with some hostile allies.  You read that right.  Hostile allies, allies trying to undermine the work that some friends and I were doing.  It kept popping up in the entries and it was even worse than I remember it.

While I wouldn't wish those experiences on anyone, I will say that they taught me things that shaped who I am and how I operate now.  And I'm grateful I learned some lessons connected to those experiences before I had the chance to lead an organization in a professional capacity. 

It's not in the journal, but at some point (maybe a year after the journal ends?), I know I reached a point where I said, "Enough." And now I know how I got there, even if I don't know when I got there.

The record is not complete.  It's biased because it's from my perspective.  But it is a part of myself I have again.  It's a gift I gave my future self, the man I am becoming today.  And it probably only cost me $5 and the time I put into it.

If you've got old journals that you haven't looked at in a few years, take a look.  If you've never kept a journal, consider it for a year and then put away the volumes as you finish them.  They may give you just the push you need in the future to overcome new challenges.