Journaling an Artistic Science.
[Music]
generally
is the science of putting your thoughts
down on a piece of paper
this is my journal it’s a book
in which i write my thoughts feelings
and emotions when i was 14 years old
i had an amazing friend who told me
about a diary she used to keep
she was a very fascinating person so
each time we met
she would talk to me about it there was
one time
i asked her what do you write in this
book
so she explained to me what she wrote
she wrote about her crushes who had the
crush on her
and which celebrity she thought would
marry her
i found that very fascinating i used to
ask myself
how is my friend so articulate how is
she able to put her thoughts down on a
piece of paper
like this i went on to ask her
does your journal come with a lock and
she said yes
so she showed me the lock and the key i
looked at them
and they were so small they could barely
fit in my hand
for me i wondered what if my mom
older sister or an aunt stumbled across
the book
and knew who i have a crush on the
thought of that
killed me so i told her i’ll think about
it
maybe some other time but the beauty
about it
was that this thought remained in the
back of my mind that there was a thing
called a journal
which i could turn to in times of
trouble there was a book called a
journal
which i could use to express myself
there are many people in our communities
who go through different pressure
stress anxiety and depression
these people have got nowhere to turn to
but a journal
is an alternative option for them to
express themselves
in my first year at university i
remember failing my exams
out of the seven courses i was taking i
only passed four
so that meant going on part-time the
scary thought about it was
there were some people who had been
advising how to pass an exam at
university
so they were coming after me and coming
to join our class
and so i was so embarrassed so these
guys will join me
and now they’ll know that i’m not as
good as they thought
i thought i was bulletproof because i
had never failed an exam
previously in my life so i started to
wonder
why would i fail now why has this
happened to me
so i turned to my journal and began to
write my thoughts down
initially feeling like a victim this
shouldn’t have happened to me
i don’t deserve to be here i don’t even
like my new class
as time went on i began to realize that
they were actually brilliant people in
my new class
some were funny some were amazing and
some were very intelligent
so my journal now turned to start
writing
things like i love my new class oh they
are very exciting people
thank god i found a new class and so it
became easier for me to deal with my
failure
this brings me on to some of the
benefits of journaling
one of the first ones is that it helps
you deal with depression
statistics show that 77 percent of the
youth
age between 14 and 25 are battling with
some form of depression
but it’s there even in adulthood
there was one time i met an amazing lady
she was so beautiful and i thought in my
head this should be the person i date
as time went on it did happen we started
dating and i was very happy
i used to look at her and think wow this
is everything i ever dreamed of
and the relationship was so good i never
thought it would end
each time when we met we were very happy
and laughing
but as i grew older i began to realize
that my goals
dreams and aspirations were changing and
maybe she was not the one for me
but i was so scared to bring it up i
just thought well when the time comes
we’ll deal with it
and so time went on i remember one day
being at a party with her
and we were having so much fun as usual
and so she bent down and told me this is
not working
at the time she had a 40 phone so i
thought she meant her phone so i bent
down and said
no no no no don’t worry i’ll look at it
afterwards
so she said no no no no no not the phone
this is not working so it clicked to me
to say oh i think she means the
relationship
but in the heat of the moment i decided
to say
ah okay when one door closes another one
opens
don’t worry it’s better to go our
separate ways than to keep fighting
about something
but what i didn’t think about was the
impact of that decision
no more late night calls no more early
morning texts
no more mid-day calls to ask how i was
doing so it hit me
is this how it’s going to be going
forward so i wondered
sometimes it would be hard for me to
wake up in the morning and sometimes in
the night i had barely any sleep
i knew that this wasn’t going to work
because i was too busy to go into a
depression
which clearly was coming so again i
turned to my journal
and started writing down my thoughts i
was actually angry at her how could she
do this to me i’m such a nice guy
i don’t deserve to be treated like this
so
as time went on i actually realized why
it never worked
and so my thoughts turned from
complaining to saying oh thank god it
never went oh it would never have worked
i’m so glad that was the outcome
and so from then i realized that the
journaling
helped me overcome the depression or the
depressive state i have found myself in
another one of the benefits of
journaling is that it helps the creative
center of your mind
open up the mind has two sides one is
the left
and another is the right the left side
is the side which we use to analyze
things the lawyers the doctors the
bunkers
that’s the side we use but then there’s
the right side which the poets the
artists
and people who are very creative views
so by journaling it allows the left side
of the brain to work
so that you free the right side and your
creative
abilities and talents tend to come out
so i think from that statistic it’s safe
to say that people who journal are very
creative
another one of the benefits of
journaling is that it can help you deal
with a difficult relationship
there was one time i found myself at
school in a room which was supposed to
house two people
and we ended up being seven so there was
one bed space here
and another one there one for two one
for two
and then it ended up being that the
corridor in the middle was where the
other three were
we were so cramped and there was no
space it wasn’t working but we were all
scared to bring the topic up
so sometimes i would ask my friends guys
is this working but they would say ish
i can’t bring that up look where will
they go they are stranded
and i knew in my heart that this wasn’t
going to work
so there was one day i got up in the
middle of the night in a hurry to go to
the toilet
but since there were people in the
middle i found myself stepping on them
and rushed to the toilet so in the
morning someone brought it up who’s that
guy who stepped on us in the night
and i was afraid to tell them it was me
because i knew what would happen
but for me that was a realization that
this wasn’t going to work
so i started to write it in my journal
how i wanted things to turn out
how the difficult conversation was going
to go on
how i was going to speak to them and ask
them
i actually had the feeling they were
going to ask me questions like where
will we go
so can’t you see we don’t have money
which room will we move to if this
happens
and sure enough those conversations came
up
when they asked me those questions i
actually had answers
because i had already journaled it i was
ready
and i wasn’t afraid so for me it was
just like relieving an old conversation
another one of the benefits of
journaling is that it helps you
create goals for your life i know
everyone has goals
and aspirations for the future and it’s
safe to put them down in your journal
imagine walking up to your neighbor and
saying i want to be the next dangote
you’ll probably think you’re crazy what
is this guy thinking
but in your journal it’s safe to put
down such crazy thoughts
what do you want for your life what do
you expect out of this life
another one of the benefits of
journaling is it can help us deal with
anxiety there are many people who go
through anxiety issues
and have got many problems but when you
journal and put your thoughts on a piece
of paper
it helps you deal with them maybe one of
you in the audience is
interested in writing your autobiography
in the future
journaling helps you keep a record of
your life
the events and how they made you feel
imagine trying to write about an event
20 years ago
today you would probably put in force
numbers
false names for statistics but by
journaling you can relieve the
experience
the reason why i love journaling is
because my journal
is my safe space in my journal i can be
myself
in my journal i don’t have to pretend
that sometimes people ask us how are you
feeling and you say fine
when you’re having the worst day of your
life there are some times when people
ask you
how are things going and you say oh they
are going okay when actually they are
not
in your journal you don’t have to lie
you can be honest
i don’t feel happy right now i don’t
feel like i’m doing as well as i should
for those of you who don’t general and
maybe are considering it
i would like to encourage you to start
it because in your journal
is a world of adventure that awaits you
in your journal
is the world of lots of experiences that
you will find
there’s lots of power in putting your
thoughts down on a piece of paper
and for those of you who probably
journal but have let go of the habit
like a baby learning how to walk that
falls flat on its face
the possibility of being able to walk on
your own two feet
and the freedom that comes with it is
enough to make the baby rise up
and try to walk again but i know there
are some millennials here who will say
but why should i write my thoughts on a
piece of paper well
you can use your tablet your computer or
any other device
that you can use to write your thoughts
down it doesn’t have to be a pen on the
paper
i would like to leave you with the
thoughts of a wise friend who always
shares this quote with me
the greatest story you will ever tell is
the story
of your own life and journaling can make
it happen
thank you very much