I have a number of diaries in my wardrobe collected over the years, all begin with the usual lack of anything interesting to say on Jan 1st - and despite the torrent of thoughts pouring forth in the weeks to come, by March, I'm down to a little dribble of quick scribblings and by April - well I've fizzled in to nothingness, fed up with it.
I cannot commit to a diary it would seem.
The other thing I notice when I look back over the first quarter of a plethora of years hidden behind my shoe boxes, is that I am negative - I dwell on the rotten, the misjudged, the irritating and the just plain annoying. I can actually feel myself festering anew if I re-read events from 7 years ago!!
I mentioned to Katy that in our spirit of trying to make improvements; our outlook and how we feel not just about ourselves, but our lives and those in it too - I might attempt to keep a photo journal.
We both agreed it might be a nice thing to do. And that was it - a scattered thought.
Until last month that is, when I found quite by accident an App for my iPhone - its called "My 365" and it is a little calendar where you post a photo a day - it seems to be Japanese or Chinese from the users on the App - because the App lets you look and link to others who are doing the same thing.
And it was free!
So I started keeping the photo journal on my phone.
Looking back over the month I realise that each day, the one picture and the very brief description brings to mind the whole day, it reminds me with little effort why I chose the picture, what I felt and what it meant to me at the time - I recall the day, often dreary days that would be often forgotten amongst the whole collection of them.
What is more important however, because its a photo and its shared - I now find myself looking for my daily photo opportunity more carefully, and instead of dwelling on the cruddy happenings or irritating persons fleetingly gone - I am concentrating on finding something beautiful and positive to reflect my day. And that has had a very therapeutic effect on how I feel about my life generally.
Today, driving in to work I looked at the landscape and realised that there was something of a blue sky and without fog or snow, everything looked lovely - I took a cute photo of a little village I drive through every day without even looking at it - but for once I looked at it with new eyes - and my photo reflects back something cute and charming.
Of itself, the photo is innocuous and hardly something to rave about - but its the fact that I looked at the everyday and dull in a new light and liked what I saw - and that I have been doing this religiously each day -and I've even started to look forward to doing it.
I would never have believed that it was possible, but I heartily recommend it.
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