Write in a journal.
When I ask someone their greatest fear, they usually respond with something like sharks or a hatred of heights. Now, I don't particularly enjoy hanging out in the ocean (thanks, Speilberg). Nor does the Penobscot Narrows Bridge inspire anything within me except the sweat glands of my palms. However, my greatest fear is neither sharks nor heights. Nor is it public speaking, spiders, or tight spaces. In fact, my greatest fear is sort of quirky : It is the fear that I will not be able to recall large chunks of my life.
I'm not talking a loss of remembrance only when I'm old, gray, and suffering from the awful disease that is Alzheimer's. Indeed, I'm also talking about the fact that I can't specifically remember what I did last Wednesday afternoon. True, since it happened just last week, I may be able to remember if I think real hard and gather up some receipts or possible tokens of remembrance. However, if you ask me two weeks from now what I did last Wednesday, I'd probably be at a loss. And I suspect that I'm not in the minority.
Therefore, the most effective thing is to write in a journal. It'll jog your memory even twenty years from now, and you'll remember even the seemingly insignificant days of your life.
Who knows, maybe some historian or archeologist will unearth it hundreds of years from now, and your recorded life will torture undergraduates just like Martha Ballard's diary hounded me.
- John C.L. Morgan
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