Four reasons you must write your personal story

Some people find it uncomfortable to share personal stories. One, they value their privacy and prefer to keep most things close to their chest. Two, they don’t want to look like a fame-chaser or a narcissist. Three, why should people care? Some people don’t feel important enough to be heard.

All of us are, in some way, similar to this brood. You probably feel a tinge or more of hesitation when asked to share about yourself. You turn on your filter, carefully minding which details to reveal and which to keep hidden. You can’t let your privacy be breached by someone you don’t completely trust–even more, by a stranger.

There is nothing wrong with being careful, so long as you don’t hold back the treasures that you may be meant to share–such as your personal stories. In the many years you’ve lived in this earth, I am pretty sure that you’ve got a chunk of story or two that is/are worth-telling. Perhaps, you’ve got an event, an episode, or a slice in your big pie of life that other people can get nuggets of wisdom from. If you think you do, it won’t hurt if you try writing about it–then try sharing it. Keep in mind: it’s not about you. It’s about your story.

Here are four of the several reasons you must write your personal story:

1. Allow people to learn from your experience. Perhaps, you learned these life lessons not only for you but also for the people around you. You can’t keep all these for yourself, anyway. One day, you’ll change, you’ll age, and you’ll forget most of it. Allow people to drink from your story’s fount of wisdom. Who knows how much it can help them or how far it will bring them? Be generous not only in gifts, help, and words, but also in stories.
   
2. Allow yourself to learn from old yourself. As I’ve said, you’ll someday change, age, and forget. Writing your lessons-filled stories now will help your future self remember them. If you’re the sort who writes in your journal every day, then you probably know how helpful recording stories is. Anytime, you can just open your old journal like a stash and bask in the beauty and lessons of long-ago. Imagine the benefits of that in your living and being.
   
3. Preserve the memories. It will be best to write with engaged senses. Wear your old-you’s shoes and relive the experience. See, hear, feel, touch, taste everything again and write it all down. That way, you can preserve the story for future reminiscing especially when time comes for your memory to fail. BUT choose well the story you’ll preserve. Choose your words well, too. You don’t want to resurrect hate, regret, and pain from their tombs and seize you like they shouldn’t.
   
4. Pass it on to the future generation. If you have children, allow them to read your story and know their parent more. Surely, they’ll like it and they might even feel closer to you afterwards. Remember: You are passing this way once, and no one else can live life the way you did, do and will do. Writing your stories now might help the future generation learn life lessons that only you can articulate.

The world operates in constant transience. People, memories, things wither, disintegrate, and if not preserved, fall into oblivion. Would you allow this fleeting, distinct, and gold-packed of a story to be set aside, less-used, and forgotten? Write your personal stories. Now.