I Wrote Every Day for 1 Year — This is What I Discovered

Only a few people in my life know this about me: in high school, I used to write everything about my life into a journal. Moments, memories, feelings, deep thoughts — everything was written into this online journal I kept secretly on my home computer.

I was obsessed with documenting. I knew that years from now, I would forget 95% of the things I did and learned in high school, so I wanted to write everything down to remember it all. In my senior year of high school alone, I wrote up to 125 pages, single-spaced.

Today, I don’t write as much anymore. I just don’t have enough time to write 125 pages every year. However, documenting my life was something I didn’t want to give up, so in the last year, I wrote one sentence every day. Whether it may be a special moment or something that caught my eye, my goal was just to put something significant about that day down on paper.

From this process of daily documentation, these were the three most important key takeaways:

Finding Beauty In Everyday Life

It’s an oddly specific question, but what were some of your favorite memories from 3 months ago?

What comes to mind are most likely the “big” moments. That weekend trip you went on with your friends. That crazy party you went to. That time you went hiking at sunset.

However, most of our life isn’t comprised of these “big” moments. It’s mostly filled with ordinary, everyday moments — the ones that we tend to forget about 3 months later.

Life isn’t just about the highs and lows. Most of the time, it’s about the middle — the everyday. However, being in the middle can be just as amazing.

When I got into the habit of writing every day, I always reflected on one small thing that made my day:

• March 8: It was a perfectly sunny day for the first time in forever
• April 4: This video of my friend dancing made me laugh for a whole minute
• May 12: The whole family came to the Bay and we ate lunch together

These little things in life are often forgotten about in a few days time, but arguably, these are the things that bring you deep, resounding joy.

By writing every day, I found that life’s greatest moments can be right in front of you.

The Importance of Reflection

As we get older, we often fall into this rhythmic cycle of fast-paced work.

Wake up. Commute. Work. Go Home. Watch TV. Sleep. Repeat.

The same goes for people still in school. This rhythmic cycle of the daily grind consumes our lives and we begin to believe that’s all we ever do nowadays.

Ask any UC Berkeley student how they’re doing and what they’re up to, more than half of them will say, “Tired… just been studying every day…” I’ve even found myself saying that from time to time.

However true that may be, writing every day has helped me to realize that life is more than just a tiring rhythmic cycle. Within this cycle, there are nice little moments that happen and are unique to each day.

Maybe within your daily cycle, there was someone that made you smile or a mini milestone you accomplished, and that should be celebrated.

Reflecting at the end of each day slows time down. In our fast-paced lives, the expression “stop and smell the roses” couldn’t be more relevant. Without reflecting, life can go by in a blink of an eye. All you’ll ever think you did in your life was tiring work, but life is more than just that. Within all that work were small moments of joy and laughter that are worth remembering.

So much good could happen in a day. Just stop and look around to see it.

Be Grateful

On a similar note, by writing every day and being in this stage of reflection, you begin to realize there’s a lot in our ordinary lives that we should be extremely grateful for.

In my challenge to write daily, there would be some pretty rotten days where things didn’t go my way. It happens.

But at night when it came time to write something in my journal, I fell into a more positive and meditative state of mind and began to reflect on things that were going right in my life.

Even when nothing was going right, there was always something to be grateful for that day. Maybe it was that nice phone call I had with my mother, or a delicious meal I had, or the roof that was over my head on a rainy day.

Reflecting and being in a constant state of gratitude helped to realize that no matter how bad things can get, everything was actually going to be okay.

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Daily writing has made a profound impact on my day-to-day life. I became more in touch with my thoughts and emotions and often had a more positive outlook on life.

No matter how busy our lives may be, reflecting every night is a habit that I recommend to anyone. Because as they say, once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.