a peek inside the fishbowl

If you haven’t guessed already, I’m referring to this:

It’s a journal, and I think it’s pretty cool. I bought it sometime last year, and during a cleaning frenzy it got swept into a drawer and it was forgotten. This is what it looks like inside:

The idea is to write one line every day, and, if you are able to keep it up, you have a succinct five year overview when you’re finished.

Five years a rather lofty goal, but not impossible. I figure there are other things in my night-time routine that I’m doing – such as brushing my teeth – so it isn’t too onerous to add this into the mix.

The space for each entry is very short, and allows for only one or two sentences. It’s reminiscent of the journal I wrote about in Canadian Family Magazine awhile back – you can read the online version right here – but this time around I’m not just jotting down my happy moments. (As useful as that was at the time.) For this particular journal I’m simply writing about what happened that day. I have found it to be a fairly useful exercise. Not only does it give me a moment to stop and reflect, but I get to choose how to summarize my day. This may seem kind of obvious. I’m the one holding the pen, of course I get to choose how to summarize my day! But will I let my darker thoughts/anxieties/ worries cloud the rest of my day? And take up space in my journal and become my last waking thoughts? That’s the question.