Sunday, January 29, 2012

Keeping Records

Everyone who has been in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for very long has heard the counsel to keep a journal.  In the mission field I finally took it seriously, attempting to write every day, and coming pretty close.  I filled two books, writing about 500 pages (maybe 150 typed pages) during the two years.  When I came home, I did a fair job of keeping it up, although in fairly short order I started typing them, with the plan of writing them out on paper when I had the time.  I felt hand-written was more personal and would be nicer to read.  When I got about six months behind on writing it by hand, I finally gave it up and realized I was never going to finish writing it out by hand, and that since I type so much faster than I write, I was going to be able to give posterity a lot more information if I typed it.  As life went on, I got a little busier, and some nights I didn't have the strength (or opportunity) to type an entry, so I followed a missionary companion's example and started doing audio recordings of my day.  I had been doing this for a few years, with fewer and fewer days typed out and more and more recorded, when I had an epiphany.  I was talking for an average of 5-10 minutes per day about what happened, what my thoughts were on it, or just what I thought on any number of topics.  I realized that if I really did that every day, assuming five minutes a day, and fifty years of doing it, it would add up to 1520 hours of journal.  If someone were to be interested in my life and wanted to listen to all of it, it would be a full-time job for six months, maybe a little more.  I got a bit discouraged about it, thinking who in their right mind is ever going to spend 1500 hours of their life just listening to me talk about mine?!  A decision to only do a journal entry when I feel like something really important has backfired on me though.  In the months since I had that thought, I think I have only written once or twice.  When I was counseled by the Spirit and by the leaders in the Church to keep a record of my life, and promised it would be a blessing to my posterity, I don't think they intended for it to end up being a short summary every six months or year!  I guess I need to learn how to better edit my own thoughts?  Is the amount a prolific blogger types the right amount?  I have a hard time, when posting on something so directly given to others in the here and now, like a blog, because I stop myself from writing everything, thinking, "No, that's not important enough to take up others' time with."  If I only write on occasion, it never becomes a habit, like a daily journal.  I was to where I rarely ever forgot to write, but I found when I did decide not to for a day, it quickly multiplied into much longer, which is one reason I (and I think others) set up a blog, and then go months between posts.  I don't have a good conclusion yet, to this blog or my dilemma.

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