Five years ago today, I started keeping a daily journal. Using this little, hardbound book gave me four lines per day to note the highlights and realizations of the past 24 hours. Over the last 1,826 days, I’ve evaluated each day in pen, knowing I could and would read back and discover how myopic some days were when seen in the grander context of months and years.
I welcomed that accountability.
My first entry came on the day I was dubbed an influential but harmful critic in my industry. The president of my trade association called me at home that night to suggest I reconsider my critique. He called me “an E.F. Hutton” of our association. “When you talk, people listen.” Earlier that week—maybe even that same day—I had also learned that my dad had proclaimed (1) that my marriage would fail and (2) that my wife and I were leading people away from instead of toward Jesus.
I stood at a crossroads of legacy that day. I had to decide if I would be a leader or a follower, a reformer or a conformer. I faced a choice in both my career and my faith: to embrace growth or to cling to tradition. I could place a metal band around my bark to resist more rings, or I could graft new and diverse branches into my green-enough trunk.
I chose to be a new and better version of myself every May 18 that I’m still alive. That would mean I would look back at old thoughts and ideas with embarrassment or laughter. That would eventuate in growing pains and new regrets. It would require apologies to friends and to Jesus. It would lead to me reading almost 200 nonfiction books between then and now, many by authors who think differently than I do, who look different from me.
That journey isn’t for the faint of heart. Some of the most difficult days of my life have occurred since that first journal entry. I’ve cried more in the past five years than any half-decade of my adult life. Thankfully, those tears have watered the soil of my soul.
It makes sense that journal and journey share etymology and most of their letters. I’ve found that documenting this expedition bolsters my spirit through the rigors of exploration. I keep track of the mistakes and lessons, the encouragement and support, the progress and the validation. Almost every morning before I start work, I go back and read about where I was on that day’s date over the past few years. Sometimes before I head to my counselor’s office, I’ll peruse my entries since our last therapy session. It’s been wild to see the juxtapositions of different events in my life.
Those pages remind me that the story of my life will not be the advertising I create, the income I generate, or the opinions I espouse. I will be remembered for the moments where I left others feeling seen and known and loved. The stories I tell in books and blog posts and podcasts will pale in comparison to the bigger story I draw people into. Over the past 15 years of blogging, I’ve found the biggest positive response has come from the posts where I was most vulnerable, where I revealed an attractive brokenness. My journal has provided the skeleton upon which I’ve fleshed out those posts and the book chapters people will be reading hopefully for years to come.
Today, my five-year journal is full. There are no more empty lines left for me to fill. Instead of starting a new book, I’ve been keying these past posts into an app on my phone. The app allows me to add photos and videos. It gives me unlimited space to write and the ability to search past posts for keywords. I can export it all to PDF or copy & paste content into other documents. In other words, this journaling practice is about to go to a whole new level.
I’m writing this post to build a digital altar to remember this transition from analog to digital and to sit in gratitude over how a small, daily practice has enriched my life. I want to encourage you to give journaling a try. Or maybe another try. Start small. Don’t overthink it. You can build in profundity or deep introspection later. Just start keeping track of moments or words or activities from your day. You’ll be amazed to see what all the highway signs say someday when you look back over your shoulder.
