Reflective Essay on Journaling Habit

Introduction

Every second of human life entails an event. The event could be happening in the surrounding physical environment, within the human body itself or even in these two domains concurrently. Fundamentally, these events trigger emotions, actions or thoughts that are not only essential for human survival but also stimulate learning through these experiences. However, the efficacy of these events in enhancing our life process depends on how we approach and the attention we devote to them. In this reflective essay, I intend to show how journaling these events have transformed my learning process and perspective on day-to-day issues.

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The truth is that prior to the journaling process, I rarely sat down and thought about my thoughts. Most of the impacts resulting from daily events were rather a series of short-lived experiences with little to learn from them. It was not until I started keeping a daily journal that I discovered that some seemingly trivial thoughts such as deciding what to wear were important to my confidence. Interestingly, I realized that certain clothes in my wardrobe amplified self-consciousness and negatively affected my daily productivity. By simply keeping a tab on my thought process throughout the day, I was able to distinctively identify how crucial dressing was to daily productivity with regards to learning, attitude and building relationships with others.

Keeping an everyday journal is the most incredible and self-building habit one can acquire yet the hardest to maintain especially in the beginning. Amidst other activities such as catching an episode on Netflix or even playing a video game, sitting down and thinking about thoughts and recording them is not the most inviting activity. However, for me, the trick was opening that journal and switching on the rewind button in my head. The more I get immersed in my own thoughts, the deeper I get hooked into the activity. Often, I have found myself losing the count of time elapsed during the whole activity. I would compare the experience to that of solving a Rubik cube or solving a puzzle but more exciting because it awakens emotions and memories that help in reconstructing events and running probes such as "what if" to evaluate whether that was the best decision.

One of the most widely debated topics in the 21st century is feminism. While the antagonist-divide of feminism accuses feminists of using the designation to solicit selfish interests, at the core, the ideology establishes to protect the fundamental human rights. Debates by both divides of the ideology are imperative because they entail valid points that should be considered before taking a side on the issue. Personally, taking a stand as a supporter of feminism or not, is not important as evaluating how the issues around the subject affect primary values that I hold dear. Journaling about the subject has been the most delighting and educative episode of the entire project. Apart from unearthing worrying statistics especially on the pay, rape culture, education and reproductive rights, recording a journal on feminism has recently opened my eyes on many inequalities being experienced within my environs that I earlier on gave little attention.

The most critical issue on feminism that I had completely turned a blind eye on is pay. In the quest to establish the argument that men are paid more than women for the same job, I discovered that as of 2015, women were still making an average of 78% to a man's dollar. This is even worse for marginalized black and Latino women who earn up to 42% less than men for the same job (Miller, 2018). The statistics even prompted a deep conversation with my mum about the issue, which she unfortunately confirmed.

Prior to the journaling project, I had least given attention to the gender gap in terms of access to education. Discussions and reports on the websites snapped me out of ignorance that I had held for a long time. A reflection on the fact that 31 million girls are kept out of school primarily because of their gender captures an understanding of why feminists get really angry when the, seemingly progressive society, is doing nothing to address the issue.

Rape culture is another feminist issue I have comprehensively gained knowledge of over the journaling project. Browsing through social media sites, I could overtly see the attitude towards it but it was not until I sat down and spent over an hour evaluating rape cases that have been reported in our block that I realized the intensity of this issue. At an individual level, the rape victim's life takes a complete turn for the worse. They are both physically and emotionally damaged and though the former heals with time, even the few who are lucky to acquire professional help never fully recover from the latter. For me, journaling on the feminist issues has come out as an effective tool to explicitly grasp the intensity of the subject and evoke a more sympathetic attitude towards them.

In addition to shedding ignorance on critical issues in my environment, I can attest that the journaling project has brought me closer to my thoughts and emotions, boosted creativity and helped me reconnect with my passions. The few hours that I have spent journaling have brought clarity, especially on frustrating events. Revisiting thoughts have come in handy in the management of emotions. For instance, I'm now able to handle situations better and make right decisions from embarrassing moments that could have ended up bruising self-confidence. Friends and family have also commented on my behaviour change claiming that I am more composed than before. I can only owe these changes to daily journaling, which has completely transformed the perspective and approach to life.

Conclusion

This assignment is essentially a reflection on documenting reflections. While the process of journaling automatically enhances ones approach on the daily activities, it can be difficult to directly get a glimpse of its impacts. The assignment was an effective tool for evaluating the effectiveness of journaling not only by bringing one closer to issues affecting us on a daily basis but also enhancing clarity through an evaluation of our thoughts. The aim of this assignment is therefore to show the personal benefits that can be achieved by cultivating a journaling habit.

Whilst the mentioned benefits of journaling are enticing, the discipline and consistency was a challenge especially at the beginning. To achieve consistency, the daily discussion of the journal entries before each class was a critical building block because it served as a constant reminder of the obligation. In the process, I was able to make the practice a habit consequently reaping all the positive impact of journaling. Despite this challenge, one of the most exciting aspects of the project was freedom of expression in terms of language and structure. There was no pressure on following any set structure when documenting my thoughts. This makes the activity inviting and intend to keep journaling henceforth.

References

Miller, K. (2018). The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap. Retrieved from https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/