“Dear Kitty…”

“Paper is patient.”-Anne Frank

Since the age of 13 or so, I’ve read, and re-read, Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl countless times. I think it’s one of those miraculous  books that only really hits home, when one becomes an adult, and understands how astonishingly brave she was. Surrounded by horror, she committed to hope. Trapped in that minuscule, claustrophobic apartment with family and neighbors, as the world collapsed around them, she kept a journal that shows her courageous determination to remain human and alive. How easy would it have been for her to give up? And yet she never did. (There’s also something to be said about a fearless, smart female protagonist for female readers. Before you roll your eyes, simma down. If you’re a solid writer, I could care less about your gender, or whether or not you like cats, or if we’d be able to get a beer together–many of my favorite authors were clearly “difficult” people to say the least, and so what? Tell me an emotionally true, well-written story and I’m hooked. But as a young girl, Anne Frank struck a profound emotional chord within me.)

I’m thinking about Anne Frank, and her Diary, because I was just nagging suggesting to one of the young writers I mentor that she start a journal, and I realized that I tell pretty much everyone I coach to keep a journal. Whether you’re a small business owner or attorney or comic or whatever, I believe it’s crucially important to have some place wherein you can share your thoughts with 100% honesty. Not to mention, that for most of us, writing is the process of figuring out exactly what it is that we are thinking. A blog, or a Facebook page, or using your Google+ account are all great, but you need to have some place where you can be honest and write whatever’s on your mind, and not worry if other people will like it, or share it, or deride it, or look at you differently.

Many people desperately want to write so they blog, and that’s great, but it can be hard to write, honestly, in a blog, about being sexually abused, or raped at your prom, or growing up fat, or why gay marriage makes you anxious. We are very conditioned to be liked, and that’s important to keep society running…but the best writing comes from honesty.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”- e.e. cummings

We live in a society which puts such a heavy, punishing premium on ACHIEVEMENT and SUCCESS ( two very different notions, by the way), but, simultaneously, places almost no importance on the process of creating that achievement, on the process of becoming a success. (Whatever success means to you….) I’m convinced that this is a big reason why I have 23 year-olds asking me if I can help them publish their book, because they want to change the world, but um they’re not like 100% sure what that book is just yet, so maybe I can also tell them how to write it…? Are you writing a book to tell your story or to get attention and approval? (If you think that publication will bring you love…hmm, maybe not so much?)

Meanwhile, some people clearly are using Facebook as their diary, and that’s how they end up posting status updates online that cause the rest of us to cringe and think, “Doesn’t Obamacare cover therapy? Pretty sure it does.” If you’re always writing for the approval of others, how could you ever really know what it is you think about anything? If you don’t know what you think, how could you know who you are, or what you want? If you don’t know you, how will you ever know anyone else? (Don’t want to die alone? Keep a journal!)

I’d argue that whatever it is you’re doing–whether house-painting, or hitch-hiking around the world, or “just” gathering the courage to start your own journey-you need to keep a journal. You need some kind of regular record of your thoughts, so as to create your own authentic, internal conversation and begin understanding all that is going on within you. Doesn’t have to be fancy: create a Word document, and put a password on it. Write about what you had for lunch, or that weird dream you had, or the girl you hooked up with last night. But keep it as a place to be honest with yourself, not as a to-do list, or open-mike night,  or generally another source of pressure for all the ways you’re going to change the world. Your world is full of enough pressure to be amazing/sexy/smart/gorgeous/charming/fun/interesting. You need some space to be honest, and needy, and lonely, and even more honest.

Anne Frank’s diary, after all, was extraordinary because she wrote it for herself. People around the world aren’t reading it because they’re so in love with Jews, after all. The book has been translated into however many thousands of languages because men and women around the world read it, and recognize something of themselves in her words. And Anne wrote that diary for herself; she was obsessive about privacy. She wrote the diary to keep herself going in a world gone mad; she wrote it to make sense of all the emotions swirling inside of her; she wrote it to have a friend. Her Diary continues to change the world, because it changed her world. Want to change our world in some way? Excellent. First, change your own. Commit to your process.  Commit to yourself.

“Who would ever think that so much goes on in the soul of a young girl?”- Anne Frank