IN THE RING OF LIFE: DEAR DAIRY,

A dairy as defined by the Collins Online English Dictionary (2024) is usually a book for keeping daily record, usually private, especially of the writer's own experiences, observations, feelings, attitudes, etc. It may also be considered as a book or pad containing pages marked and arranged in calendar order, in which appointments and the like are noted. Although keeping a dairy is an important exercise, it may sometimes be considered as a herculean task which many people would rather make excuses to avoid. Admittedly, it may be stressful and somehow time consuming to daily make time to record events especially when other equally important activities demand your attention. 

Another reason why some people may resort not to keep a dairy may be due to the fear of other people having access to it thereby gaining insight on the formers’ private and personal information they would rather prefer to be kept as a secret.

Notwithstanding these reasons, there are some useful considerations why it is relevant to keep a dairy of some sort about your life.

1. A dairy helps keep you organised. Depending on how well you utilise your dairy, it may double as a recorder of your life activities and a calendar of your events and appointments. Regularly using it will help plan your life and ensure you do not miss appointments or important events and activities.

2. As you age, you may forget important aspects of your life. As you age, certain biological factors may affect your psychological well-being especially your ability to recall or keep record of events and activities beyond a certain period. This limitation may cause you to forget vital information about yourself and/or other significant people in your life. A dairy, therefore, helps you to look back and be reminded about important information you might be unable to recover should you rely solely on your memory.

3. A dairy helps you with self-assessment. When you keep a dairy with well-articulated information, it helps you to occasionally self-reflect and objectively assess your activities over a period of time. It guides you to identify and know yourself intimately independent of external influence. As you know about your actions, attitude and performance ratings, you are able to appreciate your value as either an asset or a liability.

4. A dairy reminds you of your strengths and weaknesses. Recording activities and events in your dairy helps you store a bank of both positive and negative experiences you have had. A look through your dairy can be a good reminder about your strengths, weaknesses and may expose you to strategies you might have forgotten which worked for you to make things better. On occasions when you feel downcast, a walk down memory lane in your dairy can be uplifting as you find encouragement to press on for better days ahead.

5. No one can tell your story better than you. Making regular entries into your dairy about your life equates to telling the story of your life as you have experienced it. It highlights the emotions, thoughts and feelings you elicited during a particular event or activity. As you make notes or journal your activities, observations, thoughts and events, you are able to vividly capture intricate details that are known to you alone.

6. A dairy helps preserve your legacy. When you keep a dairy, you help in storing a memorial of how you lived for others yet unborn to learn from your experiences. Life is quite unpredictable and it seems a daunting task for families or close relations to gather accurate information to put together a biography when one is no more. Your dairy may be that autobiography where you get to share your life with others far beyond your lifetime in your own voice.

Entries into your dairy may be daily, weekly or based on specific landmark events depending on your schedules and availability to make recordings. However, it is essential to have a regular pattern to encourage consistency. Additionally, there is no restriction or formula on the extent of details to record. It is exclusively at the discretion of the individual. Nevertheless, it is necessary to be mindful that overly coded recordings may make it inaccessible to others when it is needed.

Your dairy is your personal private space where you keep vital information about yourself. You may want to keep it in a safe place to avoid exposing yourself to others when you are not ready for that. Irrespective of that, you may need to inform a trusted person about where it is kept for emergency purposes. You can leave your legacy through your dairy in your own words if you make the effort to do so. It may not be easy but it will surely pay off in good time!

Reference

Collins Online English Dictionary (2024). Diary. Collins Online English Dictionary. Retrieved on 28th February, 2024 from https://www.collinsdictionary.com.