My friend was a brilliant conversationalist, one of the brightest minds I’ve met, but he never put his thoughts into writing. It’s extra-sad that his thoughts are gone, too. So this lesson is dedicated to you, Milt Olin. I’m going to start writing again.

It is in the present moment that we begin to know ourselves. Joan Didion, a famous proponent of writing things down, began doing so at age five. She believed that notebooks were one of the best antidotes for a distracted world: “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget

Writing in a journal will help you connect the dots of your journey. It’s a way of keeping track of your thoughts, a tool for seeing and understanding your progress. A journal keeps you centered; it allows you to see fears that recur—and to recognize ones that fall away.