I’d say, whoever you are, whatever is happening, write something every day. Whether private or public, long or short, emotional or logical, digital or old-school paper-y. There’s tremendous value in writing something.
So many people do talk a lot about the value and benefit of reading books. They talk a lot about how famous people, powerful politicians, celebrities, and business leaders read. How much of their work they attribute to reading. Bill Clinton famously reads Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations every year. There’s a famous story about how the most popular book in US prisons in Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. And on and on the talks go about reading. I think it’s all 100% true.
Reading is magic. It’s like YouTube, but more thought-out content, better researched, more focused, more appropriate to your life since the book is always available and you read it when you’re ready to, but with YouTube videos you tend to watch the latest uploads. Good books are usually written by more experienced, wiser, and more competent people than most YouTubers. So the person you’re listening to has more valuable things to say for your ears. And you absorb it better because reading is more active than watching. It forces you to pay more attention to the content you’re reading, because the material isn’t delivered to you in its final form. You have to take it, and digest it within yourself. The final form becomes something purely for you, because you’re the one who digested it. It’s perfect. Multiple people can read the same book and get something completely different out of them. You can’t say that about YouTube videos as much.
With that said, you could make a bigger argument for writing. Writing is magical.
Here’s a simple lesson I’ve learned: When I ask someone for directions, and I hear them, and I say “thanks” and go on towards my destination, I tend to forget what I heard like 2 seconds ago. However… if I say the directions back to them before I thank them and leave, I consolidate my understanding of the path better as I say it back to them. And if I get something wrong, I’ll know that I got something wrong before starting my journey. Then the guide, the stranger who’s giving me directions, is still there next to me, and they’ll correct me immediately. This way, I don’t get lost.
Same thing with writing. It actually matters not what you write about (I like the “matters not” I just used there, it makes me feel unnecessarily smart.) It really doesn’t matter. Sit down, put your hand on your keyboard, or grab a paper and pen, and start writing. Smash keyboard buttons (and while you’re smashing things, smash that like button for me :D) and watch as something comes out. Whatever comes out is something your mind came up with. It’s something relevant to your life and your thinking in some way. As you write, you further digest your own thoughts, and relieve yourself emotionally from their weight a little bit, and you improve your own thinking about whatever occupies your mind.
You actually can’t go wrong writing. I truly believe, that absolutely nothing can go wrong when you write, and whatever happens will be good in some way. It’s a purely positive and beneficial experience, there’s absolutely no downside to it. I really mean that.
One of the main reasons I decided to start blogging recently, instead of working on my YouTube channel, was because writing is pretty easy (producing words vs producing video with camera footage and video editing and sounds and all that), and I can never regret writing. I’ve never once regretted anything I ever wrote. And I hope that fact never changes. Because I’m writing publicly now, the only restraint I need to have is to make sure I only write things I’m comfortable having in public. But if you don’t want even that restraint, write privately. No one has to see it but you. If you really want to, you can have your writing be in local text files so that not even some company’s servers have access to your writing (which isn’t an issue at all, but if you don’t feel comfortable having your private thoughts in the cloud, you can keep them secure in your own computer.)
The quantity of the writing doesn’t matter. The topic doesn’t matter. The quality doesn’t matter. Just that you write and express whatever’s in you is all that matters.
The Mshary 