The Inner Monologue

Ah, journals. Those beautiful, empty books you buy with the solemn vow that this time you’ll faithfully document your ~journey~, only to abandon them after three entries that read: “Rain today. Ate a sad sandwich. Existential dread—will explore tomorrow.”

Let’s be honest: The fantasy of journaling is far more appealing than the reality. You imagine your descendants stumbling upon your carefully penned musings, gasping in awe at your profound insights, whispering, “She was a poet, a philosopher, a woman too deep for her time!” Meanwhile, the reality is your roommate/kid/partner/the FBI flipping through pages of “Ugh, Karen from work AGAIN” and “Why do I always forget to buy toilet paper?” before tossing it into the nearest dumpster out of sheer pity.

Here’s the cold, hard truth: No good can come from an unfiltered journal.

• Your thoughts are not that interesting. You are not Virginia Woolf. You are not Anne Frank. You are, at best, a slightly more articulate version of your Notes app rambles, which currently include “buy milk” and “why do my elbows look like that?”
• It will be used against you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, someone will find it. And do you really want your future biographer (or divorce lawyer) reading “Day 47 of pretending to like yoga”?
• You are not Bridget Jones. Your life is not a quirky rom-com. Your diary will not lead to a dramatic confession of love or a publishing deal. It will lead to you cringing so hard you spontaneously combust upon rereading your “deep” analysis of that one text message from 2017.
• Therapy exists. If you really need to unpack your childhood trauma, pay a professional. Don’t leave it scribbled in a Moleskine for your future self to discover at 2 AM and spiral over.

So save yourself the embarrassment (and the $24.99 for that “authentic leather” notebook you’ll never use). Keep a to-do list. Track your meals if you must. But for the love of all that is holy, do not immortalize your half-baked midnight thoughts.

Because someday, long after you’re gone, someone will read it. And the only legacy you’ll leave behind is proof that you really, really overthought that one typo in an email from 2014.

(And yes, the irony of this reprocessed plastic blog of mine is not lost on me. But at least it’s not in a drawer somewhere, waiting to ruin my reputation.)