Rising from the depths — how Journaling helped me soar
Mr. Lonely
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart
August 2019, somewhere in New York City
There I was, burning away in a hotel room 7500 miles away from home with no one to call for immediate help.
Being sick is bad enough. Being all alone is even worse. Combine that with being stuck within the confines of hotel rooms for 96 hours, and you have the absolute pits.
I’d flown to the US via Dubai for an important business trip. Somewhere during the journey, I’d seemed to have caught a bug, which led to a scratchy throat as I landed down in NYC. Once I was at the hotel, the intensity of the scratchy throat exacerbated. I was soon running a fever. Exhaustion clouded my mind, and I decided to try to sleep it off. Yet, the minutes turned into hours, which turned into a couple of days. My health was still getting worse. I hadn’t eaten anything apart from a banana in 48 hours. I had to finally request my colleague, who lived in NYC, to take me to the emergency care room. I felt a little woozy after my check-up & ended up fainting for a few minutes. I woke up to Gatorade and concerned faces. The doctors told me that I had somehow contracted a type-B Flu virus. A complete recovery called for a lot of rest & strong medicines.
I was due to check out of the hotel the following morning as I planned to travel for a three-day conference. The fact that the hotel had no rooms for me was the only thing that pushed me into action the next morning. I somehow summoned the energy to pack my bags and head to the airport. In hindsight, it might have been silly to do so as I was not fit for travel. I was lucky that my colleague was traveling with me. He helped me into a chair near our gate when I got a little lightheaded and was stumbling. He got me some food during our layover in Chicago. He left me a care package with lots of carbs and some fruit outside my hotel room. I felt a little embarrassed because I was thirty years younger than him. But I was grateful for his support throughout the journey.
As I exchanged one hotel room for another, I felt mentally resilient though my bones ached. There were a few moments of self-doubt during the loneliness. I was queasy & nauseous but tried to make the most of the cocoon of solace, which seemed like a rare gift. By my very nature, I’m a positive person. Even now, I scrambled to grasp the thin silver linings on this dark cloud on which I was now afloat.
I imagined difficult times many years from now when I could call on this event for inspiration. I would see how bad things could get, yet I had it within me to bounce back from the direst of situations. To have that clear vision, I would need to capture these moments. That meant writing down exactly how I was feeling.
Enter Journaling
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
Franz Kafka
And so, during those endless days & nights, I started capturing each observant moment.
I started putting to paper each significant thought or epiphany I had.
I started to do a mental scan of everything about me.
Atom by atom, bit by bit, I processed the idea of who I was and who I wanted to be.
I did such a thorough introspection that I tired myself out and took a nap.
I woke up with a newfound clarity that there wasn’t much that I liked about myself.
I felt weak and bloated. I never wanted to feel that way again, and so my health needed an upgrade.
I needed a new system to be effective at work. I’d been grappling for months with the duties of being a founding member of a startup.
I’d forgotten what it was like to live in the moment. I was always planning or looking in the mirror. I was sloppy on the home front. With two small kids to take care of, I needed to have a sharp focus. I needed to practice mindfulness.
I also believed meditation would help me achieve small yet regular moments of peace.
All these desired changes were extensive. They could not arrive via next day delivery. I had to let them develop organically.
The process was as important as the goal. The road was even with the destination.
Journaling would allow me to let the journey play out.
And from this chrysalis, I would awaken anew.
The kicker was a great quote from the philosophy-heavy TV-show One Tree Hill, which came to mind.
People are going to disappoint you. I get that. Even expect it. But what if you wake up one day and realize that you’re the disappointment
One Tree Hill
Diaries kept by prominent raconteurs and diarists had fascinated me for many years. I had even studied the benefits of Journaling. Now it was time to reap the benefits myself.
I had been using the journaling app Day One on my iPhone, so my journal was always with me.
Any thought I had could at a moment’s notice go into my journal. There it would stay forever.
Journalling became a catharsis for me. It allowed me to organize my thoughts.
Journalling became a long, continuous, habit-chain to inspire me to create other good habit-chains.
Walking the road
Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements, when done consistently over time, do yield staggering results. Daily micro-wins and infinitesimal optimizations really are the surest way to a life that you’ll be ever so proud of at the end.
Robin Sharma
And so, I started documenting my journey towards becoming the person I wanted to be.
I visualized who I wanted to become.
I started reading books to achieve the diverse goals I’d set for myself.
I started seeing results almost immediately, which I found surprising.
My focus improved at work.
I started becoming a mindful parent.
I began ticking off some long pending tasks.
My writing progressed.
My organizational skills improved.
My eating habits became better.
I started working out daily.
I learned calmness from the ancient Stoics.
I was happier.
I became a morning person for the first time in my life.
It was a great feeling to journal my thoughts and track my mood as I made steady progress towards my goals.
The new me
Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Saint Francis of Assisi
June 2020, somewhere in Mumbai
Since that wakeup call delivered in August 2019,
- I’ve read 26 books which have expanded my horizons
- I’ve lost roughly 22 pounds by simple acts of discipline and seven-minute workouts
- I’ve maintained a 309-day active streak of writing entries in my journal
- I’ve made progress towards combating my lifelong affliction of procrastination
- And finally, I’ve decided to pursue my passion for writing
In the weeks ahead, I will share specific frameworks and play-books for Journaling and getting things done. These are especially relevant today. They will be useful to everyone wanting to jump-start the journey towards their goals.
I hope you don’t wait for the moment when it feels like you’ve hit rock bottom to begin ascending. There are always higher realms to chase.
There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
John F. Kennedy
