Top 3 Benefits of being Consistent in Writing on Your Journal

(updated April 06, 2025)

"Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it"

~David Sedaris

Having a journal - may it be a restricted blog or a handwritten diary which contains the everyday-happenings occurred in your life both with highlights and the sidelights of the day is a whole course of a meal quite fulfilling and satisfying. My below top three reasons are only in effect if consistency is observed.

1. It's a creative way of continuous learning in mastering the art of expressing your thoughts. Not only does it enhance your writing skills, it makes you explore a plethora of vocabulary.

It’s Like Mental Gymnastics… But with Words

Writing in your journal is like giving your brain a daily warm-up. It’s you vs. the blank page—and trust me, you’re winning. Whether you’re writing about what you ate for lunch or how you lowkey hate team meetings that could’ve been emails (we feel you), every sentence is a chance to flex your mental muscle.

Over time, you’ll start sounding smarter, expressing yourself clearer, and throwing around words like "cathartic" or "existential" without blinking. Imagine texting your crush with flawless grammar and confidence, or writing IG captions that slap and make people think. That’s journal magic, baby.

Ever typed a super long comment or rant on social media, read it back, and thought, “Whoa, that actually sounds kinda deep”? Yeah—journaling sharpens that.

2. An effective way of releasing emotions & feelings: may it be on the extremes, it's your world to paint, it's your choice to deliver- and it's free, no one's suspending you. Psychology books suggests that writing as an outlet of your emotions provides a healing drug to the tired brain.

Your Journal is Your Emotional Dump Bin—and It Never Judges

You know those moments when you're about to rage-text someone but instead you type it in your Notes app and never send it? That’s journaling 101. It's cheaper than therapy and more honest than your group chat.

Whether you're crying over your situationship, ranting about your boss who thinks emojis are professional feedback, or just celebrating the fact that you didn't cry in traffic today—writing it down helps your brain breathe.

Psychologists legit say that expressive writing helps lower stress, anxiety, and even physical tension. So yeah, your journal? It's basically a silent therapist who won’t ghost you.

Your mom’s old diary probably holds stories of first loves, heartbreaks, and that one day she skipped class to watch Bagets. Trust—if it worked for her, it can work for you.

3. It serves as a blueprint. Time will age up... memories gone. But if you have a day-today journal, documented and published for your own eyes only. This will serve as your guide, your cheatsheet, or could even be a memento. Lookin' back, reminiscing and learning from the past at your own expense is still the best wake-up call, for you've been into that situation before, you just have to relive the moment.

It’s Your Personal History Book—No Fact-Check Needed

Let’s be honest—how much of 2020 do you even remember? Journaling gives you receipts of your own life. It’s like your personal timeline, but with more depth than just “went to Starbucks” or “Netflix and cried.”

Fast forward 10 years: you open your old journal and read how you survived a heartbreak, pushed through burnout, or felt on top of the world after your first solo travel. It’s a cheat sheet to your evolution—a reminder that you’ve overcome things before and you’ll do it again.

Plus, journaling is that rare hobby where “talking to yourself” is actually encouraged.

Remember love letters? Remember pen pals? Journaling is that, except now you are the soulmate you're writing to.

_____

Your journal doesn’t care if your handwriting sucks, if your spelling is off, or if you're oversharing about your 3AM food cravings. It's your space, your rules. No likes needed, no comments required. Just you, showing up for yourself—one entry at a time.

So go ahead. Buy that cute notebook. Or open that Notes app. Or even talk to your Google Docs like it’s your bestie. Just write. You’ll be amazed at what comes out.

~billymacdeus

Top 5 Reasons to Upgrade your iPhone 3GS to OS 4 ( iOS4 )

The most powerful iphone OS yet to date is available now for download since yesterday. Yes! The iOS 4 is finally here.

Pre requisites before installing
- Your iphone must be the 3G version or a 3GS (iphone 3G wont support multi-tasking, 3GS does)
- Your iTunes must be version 9.2

My gut feeling said that I must download and implement it on my device ASAP, even without reading the feedback through forums etc.

And so I updated my iTunes and after a restart, I connected my iPhone 3GS and checked for updates, it detected the iOS 4 so I clicked on continue. There it went!

The process for the whole update took approximately an hour. I ended up sleeping while waiting for it to finish.

After a whole day of tinkering and test driving the new OS, here's my TOP 5 REASONS why you should upgrade your 3GS phone to the new iOS 4:

     1. Visual effects for the FOLDERS feature is breath-taking. Folders are essentially beautiful in their functions. It's a drag-and-drop mechanism that you can easily customize your docked icons. How to do it? Tap and hold an icon then drag-and hold it on top of another icon until a box appears and that's the only time that you have to release the hold. Presto, the two icons are now inside the box where it will prompt you for name or label. Do the same thing for all the icons you want to put inside that box.

     2. Camera! Gives you now the option to zoom in and out, tap on the screen where you want to focus and you can zoom the camera

     3. Photos, gives you albums and places, good thing to note here about places is the capability of the phone to record where the pictures were taken, giving ala-google map pointed flags on each location. It sorts out the pictures based on location where it was taken. Cool huh!

     4. iBooks, hell yeah! If you're a bookworm, booklover. This is it for you. I just tried recently downloading some free books over the ibookstore, pretty neat! I cant say enough. It's flawless.

     5. Multi-tasking feature.., iphone gurus eversince the beta version are saying that this is the best that iOS4  can offer. I'd say, 75% of it is true based on my experience. The main question here is how to launch the "multi-task bar"? Here's how - Double click on the home button and it will give you a taskbar on the bottom, where you can scroll horizontally while in portrait mode and vertically while in landscape. Tap and hold an icon in the task bar and it will give a minus sign on the icon, which lets you close the running app (pretty simple huh!, it's like the concept of deleting an icon from the main menu).

The main dish here about multi tasking is the ability to run multiple app on the background without sacrificing your battery life (oh yeah! This is tested by me).
Say, im downloading a book from the iBook, then I opened another app like twitter, I really don’t have to wait for the iBook to finish downloading. While posting a tweet, the book is in the process of DL, when I get back to the iBook again, the DL is done. Main benefit of this would be on games, you dont have to close a game app just to jump or switch to another app. Sweet huh?

When you launch the multi-task bar, and scroll to the left, it gives you the option of LOCK portrait mode, I found this very helpful, whenever im in bed reading a book, the phone can be locked to portrait mode which disables the automatic landscape mode whenever I switch positions. Haha! This is really nice. Along with it is  ipod's icon navigations.

On the downside, I missed the SB (sidebar) Settings which can be availed thru jailbreaking and installing Cydia. Where a swoosh of a finger can launch the sidebar. I was thinkin that Apple has implemented the multi-taskbar launch via swoosh of a finger, instead they used the "double clicking the Home Button". That is just one of my negativity on this change of platform. (we'll see when the jailbreak for iOS 4 is released)

Recap, I know it has more to offer, there were no regrets in executing this new OS. I'm beginning to get more and more of a "connection" thing with this phone. It's absolutely fantastic!




PS: if you are unsure if your phone is originally UNLOCKED, please get some more info before you upgrade to iOS 4.




~

Dearest Father...

Dearest Father,

Many times i thought you're harsh to me
impending judgment of mine so negatively
like thoughts unspoken
questions unanswered
wishes sworn under breath
things like these
you ignored
and left me tameless

they say i got your talent
the piercing coldness
i felt
or was i just paranoid?
they say i got your manners
yet i never believe
i was reared
so close and so perfect
by your wishes
or your actions
not even by your commandments

years went on,
i never had the chance
to speak
i never had the chance
to tell you
how much i love you
despite the gaps
despite the silence
in between
where barrier
is growing
each day...

then one day,
i didnt know
i began detesting you
unnoticed
yet the nerves
are pulsating, strong
and seem endless
etching, carving
in my heart
the test for loneliness

two decades,
we seldom see each other anymore
phone calls,
are just away
but you can count on my fingers
how many times we've talked...
i sensed,
i was busy
i knew
it was a cul de sac
to reach you?
i'll try...

then one night,
in the hubbubs
of this world
something
is echoing
in my heart...
to let go
and be brave,
to forgive
and forget,
to be compassionate
and to understand

it took me courage
to fly the miles we've created
to bridge the ends t'was built
somehow, agony
and pain is subdued
overthrown by power
of Love
filled and amplified
by blood..
by nature's way
of resolution
of reconciliation

though pride is lost,
on the ground
beaten and sunken!
yet, the price
is an enormous relief
to know
that im at peace
with You, My Father..
everdearest!


Happy Father's Day Dad...







~

Jogging

For the first time in June this year, i had my first jog with my buddy Rajesh. I've been procrastinating about doing a walk-around-cum-jog event for the past days. This friend of mine kept on bugging me to join him, it was like the 3rd time i promised and it got broken in the end. Why? Cuz im lazy getting out in bed at 530 in the morning. Today, as i was typing this blog, was able to manage in rising up and finally overcome this lazyness.

We had 25-30 minutes of continuous jogging around the neighborhood's large rectangular open space area. The sun is up already when we started, yet the heat is being unfelt, it was like getting a deja vu. I remember the times where i jogged in Luneta, Quirino Grandstand and the Baywalk in Roxas Boulevard. It feels good!

In the back of my mind, something's sayin that this has got to be processed with consistency. Yup!, injecting consistency in this kind of endeavor is a must so that results could be seen, although it won't show up overnight, i've made at peace with the decision that this must be done 3-4 times a week. Visioning the benefits and believing what is not yet seen are my only motivation at this moment, so that i could be consistent on this new activity.

I came home perspiring profusely, but the sweat made me feel good, it's like asking for more. Francis,(one of my villa mates) saw me and he said jokingly, i thought only fat people are motivated to go on exercising.... I made a good laugh :)

of cigarettes and babies...

"Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health" ... the infamous tagline of cigarette commercials. Smoking by far has the biggest percentage in causing the dreaded lung cancer.

to all those smokers out there, friends and brothers, this is not to threaten you. I myself is a an occasional smoker. I started tasting the carcinogen back in college. I never had to make it a habit. Just purely for fun and for the trip of it.

this (smoke trippin) has continued back in my call center days and till now as an office worker, where occasionally, my friend Jordan would offer a stick or two of Marlboro Lights. I can't say no to it and have to light it and puff...

The frequency of it is relative, based on the impulse of my mood. I haven't finish my "isang kaha" of Lights which was bought two months ago...

I don't have any idea though what is the effect of this long term habit of mine on my health in the long run. Is it worse than a being  passive smoker or the so called sidestream smoke? I found out that passive smokers - those who are non- smokers that inhales the smoke of others by chance or by repeated cases inevitably ((eg) a non-smoker person who lives with smokers in which case, he constantly inhales the smokes of the other person.), have a higher risk of getting a lung cancer. About 30% greater risk is the damage being done. With this fact in mind, i was contemplating, what could be the effect on my case who occasionally smokes? Am i worse compared to the mainstream smokers or the sidestream smokers?

It made me think twice this moment, if i should stop this once in a blue moon habit. To quit or not to quit....

On a segway, checking the video on this post, It seems that the baby being tagged smoking cigar isn't a baby at all. Try to notice his manners and the way he looks and stares, there's an aged maturity on his mannerism and the way his eyes would gaze. 

Honestly, we know the facts, the danger, the effects of this bad habit. We aren't alarmed by it because the returns aren't showing instantly. If only we could psyche - condition our brains "hey! this is bad for you, you gotta see the results soon... beware, you will be able to enjoy your retirement years no more cuz your health is at risk", - easier said than done they say.... as for me, i know what i want, and to enact it is a surer way to consider it done or accomplished.

Smoking is the perfect way to commit suicide without actually dying. 

I smoke because it's bad, it's really simple

~Damien Hirst

~~

of consistency in seeing a dentist

....on the average, no one seems-to-care, in regularly checking up with the tooth doctor. Prolly, those who can afford goes to their family dentist as scheduled, in contrast to those who are in pain -  is inevitable for them to see the dentist. Why? because the pain is unbearable, i believe it's one of the worst feeling  amongst the bodyaches any human could ever experience. (relive the scene from castaway, when Tom Hanks has to extract his own tooth, oh whoa!!!)

Rule of the thumb as per my folks and my gurus in high school, twice a year is a must in getting your teeth and gums checked up.

Two days back, i had my dental prophylaxis, it felt good, i felt better. I owed the habit of getting my mouth checked up twice in a year through one of the dentists i met, back in 2003 in Sampaloc Metro, Manila. She has inspired me to take care of my gums and my teeth, and since then, it's been a necessity of mine to fix and prevent cavities and tooth decays.

My best experience with a tooth doctor is the lady dentist in Mall of Asia (Borough Clinic) - South Wing part of the complex. She has intensified my yearning to really take good care of my mouth. And i just missed the way she did it. So flawless and caring, i didn't feel pain at all. And that was last year... 2009

Going back to the present, i still want to be thankful for the Filipina dentist who attended me two days back, although it's like "parang biten"... lolz!!! I got used to my dentist in Mall of Asia, i can't help but to compare.

My three things that tops my reason in taking care of the teeth and gums:
- prevents bad breath
- confidence in speaking, conversing in tete-a-tete
- confidence in doing a french kiss

Kindness in words creates confidence. 

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.

 Kindness in giving creates love

 ~ Lao Tzu

~~~