The Truth About Succeeding In Life

I felt a little obvious staring from my corner table in the coffee shop as I watched her propping up colorful books, full of secret treasures and colorful notes. Standing them up on their ends, stacking them on top of each other, angling them just right in the light, she took photographs, yet another way to document her journey. Finally, I couldn't help myself. I had to tell her how brilliant I thought her idea was. She generously shared with me her plans to host a blog all about journaling. She wanted to help other people learn to how to express themselves in colorful and dynamic ways.

I was inspired and it made me think of my history with journaling. I've kept journal since I was nine years old, not always consistently or with detail, but nonetheless I've been keeping a steady stream of information about my life committed to paper. My journals swarm with all the emotions and things unsaid that a child struggles with as she grows into an adult. I recently went back and read through all of my journals as preparation for the book I'm writing on self-care. It was a pretty big undertaking, sucking up several days (actually weeks if I want to be honest) and involved me dutifully trying to dissect the pieces of “me” from the reactions I had to people trying to mold me.

And as a disabled kid, I had a lot of people trying to mold me! There were daily doses of adult expectations on how my body should be moving, what it should look like, plus the heavy expectations that if my body wasn’t going to be “normal” then my mind would have to make up for it. Everything seemed like a big test on whether or not I would “succeed in life”. As a kid this term, "succeed in life" seemed more like a thinly veiled threat adults would throw at me when I wasn't doing what they wanted. As I grew up this term evolved into more of a test whose outcome would determine how happy I would be as an adult. It was a struggle, and you think that that would be most of what I wrote about, but that would be wrong. I laughed as I went through journal after journal in my early preteen years that mostly centered around boys.

It's interesting to go back and read what made an impression on you, what your real feelings were about certain events in your life. Journaling is a type of documenting, for me I write because I have to write. It's often how I process to understand the truth below my reactions and feelings. However it wasn't until recently, inspired by another friend of mine Rachel, that I started making my journals something beautiful, creative and expressive. Now getting a new journal even if it's going to be filled with everything from the trivial to the prophetic enjoys a process of exploration that includes a collage of pictures, words and colors. I think it reflects what I've learned now as an adult about "succeeding in life". I have learned that success is more about being true to my heart, having courage to take the big risks, and doing my best to ignore what everyone else thinks about that.

Current collaged journal

(Living Simply Note: Buy an old or "boring" journal for cheap and decorate for class and flair!)