Posterity

[po-ster-i-tee]

-noun

As defined on Dictionary.com:

1. succeeding or future generations collectively; 2. all descendants of one person

I haven’t written a post in a while, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted my “first” post to be about. Since I’ve been trying to work on improving my vocabulary, I decided it would be appropriate to start off the entry with a word and its definition.

I’ve heard of the phrase “for posterity’s sake” before, but I didn’t always know the actual definition of posterity. The idea of documenting thoughts and events for the future may seem like a given, but I think it’s overlooked sometimes.

Keeping a record of things for the future is something that’s especially important for someone like me, who really values memories and past experiences. I don’t think I realized how important this was for self-reflection until recently.

I’ve been cleaning my room and I decided to clean up the files on my external hard drive too. In the process, I came across some old AIM conversations and I decided to look at some old blog posts that I had online (Xanga, Livejournal, personal site, etc.). Most of my posts weren’t very substantial. They were usually about how my day was or what updates I would be making to the layout. However, I wrote just enough to give a glimpse into my outlook on life at the time.

I’ve always known that my self-esteem was low in the past. But looking back at all these conversations and posts, I never realized how dependent I was on others for validation. And although I realized a few years ago how loving myself would allow me to love others more, I don’t think I realized how not loving myself really got in the way of my friendships/relationships in the past. To this day, I know I still have a lot to work on as far as maintaining friendships and possibly reconnecting with old friends. But I think I finally understand how important it really is to have a mutual trust. If I expect others to open up to me, then the least I can do is open up to them.

[On a related note, this has opened up the possibility of focusing on mental health if/when I go to graduate school for public health.]

I know I’ve grown a lot over the years, especially during my time as a SPEAR counselor; but I didn’t realize how significant that growth was until I looked back at all these “personal archives.” And that’s part of the reason why I really wanted to start writing again - both in my tumblr and on my old personal website. Whether I write posts about my personal life or about current events, I’m hoping it will help me articulate my thoughts better in person too. And I hope that it will lead to discussions that will give me insight into others’ opinions, whether they agree or disagree with what I think. I hope that this also helps me (re)build stronger friendships.

This post ended up being longer than I thought, which tends to happen when I start to write. Some of my entries may be long, like this one, or more concise. And some of them may never be read by anyone by myself. But neither of those things matter. From now on, I’m going to document as much as I can for posterity’s sake.