When I was younger, I had made up a really shitty scrapbook of just completely random photos. I think I was about 8-10 when I had made it so of course it was filled with random pet pictures and other small things that I held near and dear to my heart at the time. And I had forgotten about it as the years flew by.
It was only recently that I’ve been reminded of it, and found myself missing it. How fun it was to create the spreads, make the titles out of stickers, all the themed stationary, having physical photos, and more importantly, having something to look back on.
Of course I haven’t looked at it in while, and to be quite frank, I’m not sure where it ended up so I don’t know if the chance is even there.
I remember going through photos of when I was younger and the memories that had been long forgotten were suddenly remembered again, just like they had happened yesterday. It felt like I was living in that moment again, or at least the ones I’m able to remember.
I had rarely documented my life during quarantine and it made me realize that I barely have any pictures of myself. I fear as I grow older that I’m going to look back and wish I had taken more pictures throughout the years, no matter how random or how silly or weird they might end up being.
It’s also not just documenting me, it’s documenting my surroundings, what my life looks like at that time, what a casual day in the life looked like at the time. And I want to do more of that.
I want to document more of my life, more of me. I want the candid photos, I want the ones where I might not look the greatest, I want the ones where people judge my fashion choices, I want the ones that show my personality.
But I want to do this without the external pressure of social media and what it’s now become with the introduction of AI. I’m no stranger to what other people are capable of, especially when it comes to the online world, so why should I be forced into sharing these fun and personal moments?
Honestly, I think everyone should start documenting their lives and just keep them for yourself, for your own enjoyment.
There’s multiple ways that you can choose to do this and you should never limit yourself on how you choose to document things. Some people prefer videos, others might prefer photos and there’s a whole population out there that prefers journaling. And there’s not one “right” way to do these things either, it’s just about what works for you; what’s easier for you, what’s more convenient.
If writing is easier for you, then journal. If photography is more your thing, go for it. If creating a montage of clips and random videos is more your speed, switch it into full gear. It’s all about finding what works for you and what’s easiest for you. And you don’t even have to do these every single day either. If you want to, that’s great, all the power to you. If you only want to document a certain aspect of your life (i.e. your everyday outfit), go for it. Point is, nothing is stopping you from doing what you want to do, except for you.
Personally, I’m going to be doing all three. And definitely won’t be doing it everyday because that’s what works for me. I’m not good at doing things on a daily basis so why would I put that pressure on myself to do this everyday. Why stress myself out over something that’s meant to be fun? Why would I willingly put myself into that position?
Since the start of 2024, I’ve been keeping a journal and I’ve tried this in the past but it always falls through after the first few days, as New Year’s Resolutions typically do. And after looking back and reflecting on why they never made it after those first few days, it’s because of the pressure I was putting on myself. The pressure that my letters and writing had to be perfect, my wording had to be perfect, the content had to perfect. Every. single. thing. that went into these journals had to be perfect and yet I was the only one putting that pressure onto myself. That internal pressure came from no one but me.
I think a huge thing for me too was I never really knew what to write. There was no direction, there was no prompt. I didn’t know where to take my story for that day. There were no set plot points that I needed to hit. There was no defined structure and because of that I had no idea where I should start.
So the way I’m combatting the need for my journal to be perfect is through giving myself general prompts – which are a) what I ate that day, b) how much I spent (if I spent anything) and c) one thing that I learned. I also don’t physically write these in my journal until a week has gone by so I can do 7 entries at once, expanding on some days where I feel fit. To make sure I remember what I did each day, I have a note in my phone to keep track. I typically do all my reflecting before I go to bed and I don’t always want to whip out a marker and my journal. And by doing this, I’m doing what’s easiest for me to keep it fun. Fun things don’t need to be difficult to do.
Another way I document things through writing is by sending letters to my friends. This year I’m starting a monthly ‘newsletter’ type of thing that I send out to my internet friends that don’t live within close proximity. We don’t always have the time to catch up with one another via text or facetime and it’s so fun writing a letter. You can write as little or as much as you’d like, you can share whatever you want or add some pictures if you really want.
I’ve been sending my internet friends letters since around 2019/2020 and every time I send one, I’m always making sure to include some happy mail inserts. For me, those consist of a) a playlist made up of some of my recent favourite songs, or songs that I think the recipient would like, b) a list of things that I’ve taken a recent interest in and c) some stickers, because who doesn’t love stickers.
Letters are such a fun and cute way to share things with your friends and it’s something physical so you can keep it forever. You can look back on these in 5 years from now compared to the texts that you’ll forget you sent two days ago. They don’t have to be formal either, your grammar and spelling don’t have to be exact unless you want it to be.
The majority of us already document our lives through photography, it’s just that our approach to it has shifted over the years. Instead of bringing a camera with us, we now bring our phones. But I think we should start bringing cameras everywhere with us again. Cameras are able to capture things that phones just aren’t, the perspective is different and feels more raw, almost intimate in a way.
Whenever I look back at photos on my phone, I’m not hit with the nostalgia wave that I usually get when holding the physical picture in my hand. And yah, you totally could just take pictures on your phone and get a Bluetooth photo printer. I think I just like the experience of waiting for the printed ones to come in the mail. And the great thing about how advanced we are technologically, there’s so many websites and companies out there that you can send in photos and have them be delivered to your house; we don’t even have to go out to get them developed anymore.
I would love to get a polaroid camera at some point in my life but I fear that it would never leave my house. I love the idea of having the instant print out though, I’m just not sure I could justify buying yet another camera as I already have a DSLR and another just for videos. With my DSLR too, my only limitation is the storage space on my SD card, but other than that I can take as many or as little photos as I want. I’m not limited by the amount of paper I need to insert for instant prints. I have the freedom of taking as many as I need that a phone would give me but still get the experience of what it feels like to take a picture.
It would be cool to use some physical photos for journaling and scrapbooking but printed using sticker paper. I think it’d be cute to use them on spreads to fill out the dead space and you could have some that are smaller and some bigger ones.
I think that candid photos make the best photos and I’ve always thought that people’s best Instagram photos are the ones that don’t look deliberate. Nothing annoys me more than when I see influencers pose for a photo. To me it just seems like they’re trying too hard to look like they’re having fun, as opposed to just having fun and someone just so happened to take a picture in that moment.
A huge reason why I want to shift more into getting photos physically printed is because of the nostalgia and the emotional journey we venture down when looking at physical prints. I used to love looking through photo albums with my parents and I miss doing that. I miss when things felt real. And I’m not sure if it’s just me that feels this way, but whenever I look at photos on my phone I feel like I’m looking at a movie set background. It feels like there’s no depth to the picture and it feels like I’m looking at something that’s two dimensional. Physical photos don’t feel like that. You can see the depth and because of that it makes it easier for me to put myself in the picture. With digital, I just can’t do that.
The fun thing about video is that you don’t have to capture on specific moment, you can actually capture a segment of moments within a few seconds of a clip. You can remember certain sounds, hear people’s voices. And that’s something that a photo will never be able to do. And sure, we can use QR codes, but they’re not as natural as videos would be.
I think if I were to use videos as a medium, I’d 100% post them onto YouTube – there’s really no reason not to. They don’t even have to be public, you can keep them private if you really wanted to. But it would save the storage of having to keep an external hard drive with these videos on there. And if you were okay with having them set to public, you open up the opportunity and potential to make some money from these videos (again, only if you really wanted to and were okay with sharing these memories with a bunch of strangers).
So far I’ve been taking 2-4 second clips on one of my camera’s – it’s literally just been me filming very mundane, everyday things – and eventually when I get a microSD card reader, I can take these clips and create a little montage. If I wanted to. Otherwise, I’ll just export the clips onto a USB stick and look back on them whenever I’d like.
I guess people do this all the time, like when people post little mini vlogs on TikTok about their day. But I think there’s so much beauty in keeping some of those clips private and keeping some of them for your own viewing pleasure. We’ve never been in a society where we share every single thing, we’ve never needed to and we don’t need to now. No one really needs to know what we’re doing at any given time of the day. It’s one thing if you post because it’s something you want to do, but it’s another thing if you’re only posting for other people’s viewing pleasure, or because that’s what gets the most views. But it’s not about the views, it’s about how you feel.
There’s so much beauty in such small, mundane things and I think a lot of us have forgotten about that and need to be reminded about that. I think we also forget that we have free will, we can do what we’d like (within reason) and at the end of the day, we quite literally are the only people holding ourselves back from doing these things; in this case, documenting our lives more.
The main thing to remember is to keep things fun. You will know true happiness when you’re having fun and more importantly, allowing yourself to have fun. Do everything you possibly can to make it fun for yourself. No one else matters more to you in this world than you do. Don’t end up on your deathbed regretting not doing things just because you were too scared of what others thought of you. Don’t give them that much power over you and your life. If there’s something you want to do solely because you want to, yet no one else wants to, do it anyway. Show them that it’s fun and change their mind. Change their perspective.
You’d be able to walk away knowing that you did everything in your power to live a happy and fulfilling life. And that’s something we all should be striving for.
All this being said, for the month of February I’m challenging myself to record myself every day and make vlogs for no one other than myself. Maybe I’ll post a few clips here and there, I’m not sure yet. But I think it’d be a fun experiment and you should try it too.
If you choose to do this alongside me, let me know how it goes. I want to hear all about it 🙂 Once the month is over I’m going to make another post highlighting any changes and differences that I notice.
Anyway, thank you for reading and I’ll see you in the next ❤
julzy 
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