Learn From Your Personal History

Why we must write for our future selves

Hello readers,

You may know by now that I’m a big sucker for history.

There’s so much to learn by delving into the past: where we come from, trends that shaped our lives, cultures, and institutions, and the causal factors that got us here.

Some of the smartest people on the planet have made it their life’s mission to advance the study of the past to derive lessons for the future.

I propose that a similar, systematic attempt be made not just at the level of nations, empires, and cultures- but at the level of the individual.

What I’m proposing is that we not just learn the lessons of history, but take that one step ahead and learn from our very own, personal histories.

You may find the study of the past a boring subject- why care about rapists, psychopaths, greedy assholes, and the occasional brave dude who took on the role of a “king”? Why care about who killed whose pet horse and who looted some stupid piece of rock that is now the world’s 2nd most controversial diamond?

I can give you half a dozen reasons to care about these things. But I don’t think you need a reason to delve into your own history and take a 30,000 ft view- the kind of view you get when you’re looking out of the window on a Spice Jet flight and the turbulence is giving you extreme palpitations.

We try to do it all the time. People can’t stop obsessing over past events- like that time when they showed up at work wearing Cheetah print socks and became the laughing stock of the office for the rest of the financial year.

But what I’m proposing is a very different variety than this keep-wallowing-in-shame approach to evaluating your existence.

You don’t have to keep rolling in embarrassing thoughts. You don’t have to try and recollect something about your life, only to get distracted the next minute. All you have to do is start writing about your life as it is- once a day, or once a week, or maybe once a fortnight.

But write about it. And there’s no negative marking for writing poorly, not knowing what to write about, or writing in a way that doesn’t come close to the quality levels of Shakespeare.

Write about your life in as much detail as possible- about your thoughts, emotions, and concerns. About what you are excited about, and looking forward to, and also the ugly stuff that’s giving you sleepless nights.

Some people call this journaling, and they wouldn’t be wrong. What I’m trying to talk about isn’t the act itself, but its utility and exciting potential.

I started this practice in my very first year of college. The purpose, back then, wasn’t to engage with philosophical ideas like cultivating gratitude or making sense of your emotions. The idea was many times simpler and more appealing: to create a record of my life- the raw and accurate version of what happened, warts and all, just so I could read it 5, 10, or 20 years down the line and have a good laugh.

How much fun it would be to read about my stupid concerns (“So glad people liked my Facebook post”), weird fantasies (“I hope I can Ctrl+S my life right now lest something bad happens to me”), big wins (got my first right swipe after 2 years of hard work) and the general contours of life.

How fascinating it would be to know how my past self thought about himself and the world. How the stuff he craved ultimately turned out to be so inconsequential, the stuff he cried about proved to be a short-lived desire.

Most importantly, just how everything about myself has changed so drastically that it makes one wonder- is there even a concrete self? The Buddhists have a solid answer to that timeless question, and it’s not a “yes”. But that’s a conversation for another day. Or rather, one that cannot be had at the intellectual level.

You can learn quite a bit by examining your own personal history this way, beyond just having a hearty laugh and reminiscing the good old days by indulging in a 5-minute time travel to the past.

Over time, your notes become an instantiation of your past self at different points in time. And as you analyze each instance in the continuum, some other things become very clear:

• Things don’t matter as much. What was once a major concern in life ultimately fades away to the extent that we can’t even recall it a few years later. In such cases, going back to those moments cannot help but induce laughter and wonder in equal measure. Such re-evaluation gives you a better sense of the impermanence of all human experiences- joyful or sorrowful, exciting or boring. It shows you how placing too much emphasis on any kind of event is a fool’s errand because of this timeless law of nature.
  

• It’s incredible fun to read the story of your life as it is, not as you imagine it to be with all its attendant distortions and fabrications that get built up along the way. Our memories are extremely unreliable. As I’ve written earlier, we keep editing our memories over time, in a way that severely distorts our understanding of what actually happened. But when we capture a moment in our lives by committing it to paper, we’re working against this inevitable distortion by creating a record of what actually happened. What would you not give to know what your life was like in your 20s, instead of trusting your faulty memory mechanism to tell you about it?
  
  

• This personal history document/journal acts as a fantastic decision log. While talking about your deepest desires/emotions, you’re bound to express your thoughts on some big life decisions. It is invaluable to go back to know exactly what you were thinking while making that decision (like whether or not to marry that guy or whether to move abroad or stay in the country). Since your future self already knows how things turned out to be, it’ll also provide insight into how well you decide and what changes you need to make when confronted with high-stakes decisions. I recently started maintaining a separate journal for all my business decisions- so I can periodically analyze how I’ve fared and how I can improve my thinking.

Writing your personal history is not just beneficial, it’ll lead you to produce a piece of work that will never cease to entertain, impress, and enlighten.

So go ahead and write the first word in that document today. I hope it turns out to be a useful and enjoyable habit.

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