Journaling versus Blogging

Back in 2004 I started to keep a journal. It was basically a folder on my Linux powered laptop, with a bunch of unorganized files floating around. Everything was written hastily using vi, an editor which may be considered somehow cumbersome by the average computer user. Those were the days when my programming skills were sharper than ever… 4 years later I look at blogging from a serious business perspective, and made from eDragonu.ro blog my main activity. It was quite a process. Not always simple or even visible, sometimes pushed in the background by other, more urgent activities, but it was constant and evolving. It was like a subtle awakening. In this post I will try to outline some of my experiences from an emotional journalizing attitude to a much more fulfilling approach like blogging.

Getting emotional

Keeping a journal is a fantastic therapeutic activity. It literally keeps depression away (but don’t talk about that to your therapist, or you can notice a sudden increase in his bill). Most of the people think about journaling as a very normal and maybe even necessary activity, but only until you finish college. You are allowed to keep a journal until your graduation, but if you do this afterwards, well, you might be labelled as a strange person. Journaling is often seen as a weakness or a sign of an unstable personality.

But in fact, it is quite the contrary. The vast majority of famous people had a journal. Almost any important personality, from physicists like Albert Einstein to writers like Marcel Proust, they all kept a diary. And that seemed to enforce their inner balance and to boost their creativity resources. Having a journal is a sign of honesty and courage. You know, meeting with yourself is not always comfortable, and your journal is a continuous meeting with yourself.

I started journaling mainly because of my emotional overflow. I needed a safety valve, other than escapism, denial or alcohol. I used those safety valves before, until I actually rend them useless. They were not safety valves anymore, but addictions or psychological delusions. So I started to write whatever I felt when I was in a frustrating mood. I just wanted to know who I am and why some things are happening to me over and over again. I wanted to identify everything that made me angry, or sad, or even happy and joyful. It was an action triggered by a very high emotional state. It was an attempt to regain the balance between within and without. It was an act of relief and recharge.

After several days in which I wrote all of the pressuring stuff, I started to feel a difference. I was somehow relaxed. I felt like I processed it in some way, it was not on the inside anymore. I managed to get it out, put it in a safer place, and gain some relief over it. The emotional overflow finally found a way to flow. It felt good. But as the number of files started to grow on my folder, I began to actually read them, not only write them. It was the second important step I took. I started to actually understand.

Measuring up

I understand that the greatest advantage of a journal was not the fact that I could write something and take it out of my head, but the fact that I was able to read, days or week after, everything that I wrote. And then the real picture started to unfold. What I saw on the journal was not what I thought I was. Whatever was written there, it was different. I was a different person from the person I always knew I was. I started to know myself.

Reading the journal gave me a very important perspective: the measurer perspective. Having a safe place for storing my experiences finally revealed them in their real light and made them measurable by me. They were not only immaterial thoughts, they were readable sentences and paragraphs. I could compare them, I could group them, I could mix them the way I wanted.

Soon enough I started to analyze the journal. Or, to be more precise, the person behind that journal. And that was me, of course. Having a journal become my own self therapy, and I become my therapist. A very indulgent therapist, in the beginning, one that mainly acknowledged what was happening and rarely took action in any way. A passive measurer of my own life.

My life in a box

And then, after several months, I gradually gain some momentum. I started to journalize even when I was not on an emotional overflow. Knowing that I will measure everything later, I started to write things when I was in different states: stillness, relaxation, day dreaming, extremely focused, and so on. Little by little, my  whole life started to breathe in that journal.

I started to put there goals, to establish metrics, to identify opportunities, to reveal weaknesses. To make a long story short, I started to use journaling as a scaffold for my life. At that time I started to be interested in astrology and esotericism, in becoming a raw foodist and started to dramatically improve my relationships. It was like a veil was lifted off of my resources. And, even if this looks hard to believe, journaling had the key role in this transformation.

Blogging

After two years I started my first blog. It was a personal blog in Romanian, my first language, and at that time I saw it like a normal evolution from journaling. I was soon to discover that blogging was a lot more than journaling. Because in blogging you start conversations, you have witnesses. In journaling the “dear diary” style, you are your own measurer, in blogging, you’re “naked” (assuming you’re an honest blogger) in front of an unknown audience. 

The biggest difference between journaling and blogging is not the fact that blogging is public, but the fact that by this exposure it transforms your experiences in other people values. Whatever you write there, will be measured by others too. Whatever you create there, will become the scaffold for somebody else’s life. It’s not about you anymore, it is about other people around you. You’re not writing anymore, you’re sharing.

And that is a big responsibility. I guess any blogger have been through this process at some point. There is a point in which your “public journaling” will become blogging, and that point is the most important step to be taken by anyone who want blogging to be a fulfilling activity. By accepting responsibility for your posts, by understanding that everything you write can affect other people, perhaps in ways you couldn’t image before, by being honest in what you write, you create the premises for a successful blog. No matter if your blog is a news blog, or a personal development blog. As long as it’s an honest and responsible act of writing, as long as it really shares the values you believe in, it will create the potential for positive transformations.

Sharing for growth

That responsibility can also be understood like courage and generosity. Blogging is an act of courage, because you put your own experiences and talent in front of a potentially unlimited audience, and is an act of generosity because you put your own experiences and talent in front of a potentially unlimited audience. Exactly for the same reason, yes.

Taking the time to think how helpful journaling was for me, I can only imagine how a responsible and honest blogging could do for others. In fact, I think most of the influential and successful bloggers already know that. I also think that the vast majority of the unsuccessful bloggers, who are daily struggling for visibility, is just ignoring this simple principle:  in order to be successful you have to contribute, you have to create value out of your experiences, you have to really share. 

To share for growth.

Tagged as: Blogging, journaling, personal, Personal Development, success, values

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