Why do I write?
The Benefits of Writing for me
The Writing Machine
My first publication was with a local newspaper when I was around 6 years old.
I couldn’t tell you how excited I felt when I first saw my name in a newspaper.
It was a co-creation with my engineer dad. He encouraged me to write down a problem that bothered me the most and think about how technology and imagination can help resolve that. (Ah -ha moment!! — this must be where my product thinking initially formed… Thanks Dad)
I couldn’t come up with anything …and I was also a little bit grumpy during that time because this “co-creation“ was between me and dinner.
So when my dad patiently asked me:
“Hey,Xian, what is bothering you at the moment?”
Without much hesitation, I replied with annoyance:
“ Writing of course! I hate writing!!!”
My dad neither got impatient with me nor stopped the conversation there, instead he continued
“So now Imagine you have access to the most advanced technology,
how would you like to solve it?”
(Note: this is in early 90s, way before the digital age of iPhone, digital watch were invented)
“ I hope I can create a machine that can extract all my thoughts out and write for me!”
“Cool idea. What does the machine look like? You know machine these days can come in different shapes, such as clothes, watches, glasses even”
(Again, this is way way before google glasses were invented, even until today I still don’t know where does he got the inspiration from…)
“I would love it to look like a hat, so I can wear it to sleep! It will automatically read my mind and write it for me!!”
“Oh, Great! How does this machine function? What is his/her name?”
“Can we just call it a Writing Machine (写作器)? And it can read our mind, help me write and automatically send it to my teacher!”
… …
Well…. yes, as you can guess, my first article in the local newspaper is about a writing machine that can help us write.
After I published it…
Apart from the excitement, I was also really worried about my teacher and classmates’ reaction to it — as a child, I care A LOT about what they think of me and I really don’t want to be considered as a lazy kid who kept thinking about using machine to do my work (Now, I know this is called Automation and it’s the tech trend)
But instead, I learnt that writing is not only bothering me, but almost everyone around me.
My Teachers, classmates and neighbours who read my article would come to me and wish me to create this writing machine soon to help them ease the pain of writing.
Until today. I have not invented a Writing machine, but my habit of writing things down continues from there. I really started to find joy and power from writing.
I record my thoughts through journals, post notes, whiteboard iPad, iPhone and medium blogs…
In my recent reflection, I realised writing has became one of the most important activities in my life ( even I am still not good at it )because, it really
- Helps me find my voice
- Brings me peace
- Inspires me to think & learn
So I am thinking of WRITING a short blog to explore a bit more about these benefits.
(Disclaimer — this blog is written from my personal experience, you might need to do you own research on the scientific benefits of writing, I am sure there are plenty too. I included some at the end of this blog)
1. Writing helps find my voice
If you have met me or heard me talk before, you will notice I speak really fast. And sometime is even faster than I think- things come out of my mouth not only confuse others, but also myself…
This really bothered me when I couldn’t accurately articulate my points. So I had always chosen to remain silent and reserved my observations in both professional and personal situations.
One day, I came across Jordan B Peterson <<12 Rules for Life>>
“If you have something to say, silence is a lie ” — Rule 4
That’s when I realised kept bottling things up was not a solution.
I went to a very well spoken colleague who I was working closely with that time. I tried to find out his secret behind his ability to articulate his points clearly. He told me his “secret” was actually his notebook — He wrote everything in his head down and use pen and paper to structure his thoughts. He called it — “thinking with pen”.
I decided to give it a go and wrote down my thoughts before speaking. I realised I not only be able to articulate my thought more fluently and there is always new thoughts surface up during this process.
My confidence in speaking definitely increased after I learnt to “thinking with my pen”.
2. Writing brings me peace
I had sleep issues for years, for most nights, I would fall into a very light sleep for about 1–2 hours and then woke up by some extremely vivid nightmares.
After years’ trial and error (I tried everything — meditation, room cleaning, essential oils, before bed routine etc), there is no right solution for me yet.
Early this year, my therapist suggested me to write a sleep journal everyday — to start record all the things I did today before bed. Hopefully to identify some patterns before referring me to a sleep specialist…
During that period time, a mentor of mine also recommended me a writing tool called — Writehoney — an online writing tool to encourage people write down 750 words everyday.
I combined both exercises and started to write 750 words on everything everyday — what I did, people I met, things I am grateful for or any random thoughts that can help to reach 750 (750 are a lot of words, trust me…)
2 weeks after this new habit,I had my 1st ever dreamless sleep! I still remembered how fresh I felt when I woke up that morning!!!
My sleep issue hasn’t 100% resolved yet (because there is some other issues I am working through), but writing is the most effective solution to date to bring peace (and good night sleeps) into my life.
3. Writing also inspires me to learn and reflect
Every change start with awareness. (e.g: ADRKA model) Writing really helps me to start to aware of my own thoughts and need to change.
Take writing this blog as an example, it really help me aware how much I enjoy writing and all the benefits I have been received from my writing experiences.
These are the top 3 reasons that motivated me to write more, of course everyone gets different benefits out of the writing processes.
I would love to hear about yours. ( Share why do you write on the comments below)
Thank you for reading and happy writing!
