7 Reasons You Should Write

Below are 7 reasons you should write. I know there are more reasons, but these are just the first ones that came to mind. If you can read this right now, you can also write, so there’s no excuse. Unless someone is reading this to you because you’re illiterate. Whether it’s in a password-protected, encrypted document no one else will ever read, on a website that gets thousands of views daily, or on a piece of bloody scrap paper you pulled out of a dead hooker’s pocket, you should write and write and write.

1. Permanence, organizing your thoughts

When you put something in writing, it becomes more permanent, more real than if it remains in your head in the world of thoughts. It makes it easier to organize your thoughts when you write them down then read them back to yourself. A lot of the time you can actually learn a lot about yourself by just writing. You can learn things that were hidden in your subconscious but never before revealed themselves to you, especially when you free write as a stream of consciousness – just writing and writing as quickly as you can without thinking at all, regardless of what you write. What you read back from the page may surprise you.

2. Remembering

Journaling is great because it’s a good way to document your life and all that you have done. Sometimes you’ll forever forget things you did if you don’t write them down. I very much enjoy going back through my journal and reading about the things I did a year ago, and on the rare occasion I find some writing I did many years ago, it’s always extremely entertaining. I get to relive events in my mind, or if they’re bad, I get to be thankful that they’re over and think about how they made me stronger. It’s also fun to understand my mindset in the past, how I got angry over stupid things, how I wasn’t thankful for much, and how I’m in a much better place now, mentally.

3. Help others

If you decide to write publicly, as I do on this website, you can help and/or entertain others by allowing them access to your ideas and experiences. Maybe they can learn from your past mistakes and experiences, or your recent realizations. You can create a positive ripple effect through the world just by typing a few words onto a website.

4. Improve yourself

When you write about self-development stuff, it makes it more likely that you’ll take your own advice. As the saying goes (I don’t feel like looking up the exact numbers and wording), you learn 20% of what you hear, 50% of what you see, and 90% of what you teach, or something like that. And it’s true. Ever since writing about gratitude here, living in the present here, outcome independence here, and eating slowly here, for example, I’ve found it much easier to apply that wisdom in my life. When you write about something, you remember and apply it better than if you hadn’t written about it.

5. Cultivate your creativity

When you sit down to write, whether it’s something informational, motivational, or fictional or whatever, you’re using your imagination, cultivating your creativity. The more you use your creativity, the more creative you become. Your creativity is just like a muscle. The more you work it, the stronger it becomes. And when you become more creative, you become smarter, and when you become smarter, life is better. You come up with creative, awesome solutions to all of your problems. Write to make your life better.

6. Be a creator

You’re creating something that has never existed. Nothing in the history of Earth has ever existed with the sequence of letters on this page you’re reading. That’s all me, I have created it. As I say in this post, we humans are creators. The more things we create, and the better they are, the more in tune we are with our purpose as humans, so the happier we’ll be. When we’re uncreative, lazy leeches who don’t produce or create anything, we are, almost without exception, depressed and unhappy. Look at all the people mooching off the system and not contributing anything. They’re miserable people, generally. It’s because they’re completely wasting their human potential and they know it, at least on a subconscious level.

7. Fun

It’s fun writing when you write for the sake of writing. You’re not writing a bullshit essay on post-modern feminism (I don’t even know what that means) or some other boring-ass assignment. You’re writing about whatever you want. Sit there, think about anything, imagine, and start writing. Write about your day. Write about past memories, your future hopes, or whatever you’re experiencing in this exact moment. Describe your writing space, describe your feelings. Write a note to your future self, your past self, your present self. Whatever you want. You never have to show it to anyone, although I recommend you do. You can write, read it, then delete it. That’s better than nothing. The more you do it, the better you get at it, the more fun it becomes. I haven’t been writing much in the past few weeks and it feels like something is lacking from my life. I’ve decided even though I’ve been and will be very busy for the foreseeable future, I’m going to write more because it just feels so good.

You’re welcome in advance,

Chaki