Do You Own A Memory Book? If Not, Start One Today

Sastang pranam at your Lotus Feet Swamiji. You have really beautiful feet (as sneak peeked by me during the Ashram visit). I can say, the perfect chiseled body as we have visualized the divine being to possess.

As I was feeling a bit less energetic due to this scorching summer heat, in came Medha ji’s wake up call to write something on daily basis from 21st to 25th April 2022. Winning or not is quite secondary, but the feeling which it did create to refresh the writer inside me is really amazing! Thank you, Medha ji for such a wonderful opportunity and yes, I am not writing all these praising phrases to increase the Probability Distribution Function of becoming one of the winners 😉. Just kidding, I won’t mind becoming a winner 😉 after all either!

Now let’s discuss about today’s topic of maintaining a ‘Memory Book’! What is a Memory Book? A Memory Book is a specific purpose book to jot down your memories in not more than 3 to 4 lines. Which kind of Memory? Both good and not so good. You may ask is it not same as maintaining a diary? The simplest possible answer is ‘NO’. In a diary we write the important incidents which happens in our lives on a day-to-day basis or in a regular interval. The description may be very elaborate and at times it can take a full page for logging a day’s experience.

But as we are all pressed for time as Swamiji has stated many a times “you got a million things to do on Face book, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social medias, so I am trying to minimize the time I demand from your end 😉”. Yeah, we all need instant things like instant food, instant gratification, instant grocery delivery to watch IPL, instant internet access, instant money, instant name and fame etc. So, the Memory Book is also an instant note which you can make either digitally or physically. But in my opinion, physical book is more preferable as it reduces the screen time, improves your handwriting quality (or at least prevents its further deterioration!), provides security against digital data corruption and cyber security blah blah😊!

By the way, let me ask all of you (excluding students) a question: How many pages do you write with pen / pencil on an average per month? What? Did I hear “buddy, you are old school!” Why on earth would we write physically when we have all kind of Digital Assistances? Yeah, that’s what is the problem mate. You do not write even a page in the entire month except for ticking on the calendar the dates on which the milkman bunked, when the gas cylinder got delivered, when the paper hawker went absconding or your maid did not turn up (it really hurts, isn’t it?) etc. At the same time, you want your kids to write their homework as if the page was printed🤭! Hence, it is requested to do the needful at the earliest. (The most used official statement😝!)

All you need to do is count your memories and save them with brevity. The memory need not be a grand one to be qualified for entry. You can write the simple memories like “Today, I looted the bank and my photo has been published in all the leading newspapers🤪”. Just joking! “Today I could successfully revive a plant by watering it regularly in the scorching summer” or “Today, my baby smiled for the first time looking at me” or “Today I am very much satisfied with my work as I gave my best” or “Today, I got the confirmation of Swamiji’s permission for Family Darshan”. Even you can write the tiniest memory like “Today, I did a very good physical workout (after 2 years of COVID Break!🤒)”.

And yes, if it is a memory created by the entire family, please replace the ‘I’ with ‘We’. Please try to save some money i.e. Rs. 50 or Rs. 100 against the memory and after completion of a month, deposit the entire amount in your bank account in a separate account called “Memory Account”. As you earn more, you can increase the amount in proportion to the memory. In the similar manner, you have to be honest with the not so good memories like “Today my boss took all the credit of my work and I was left high and dry😛!” But, this being an everyday story does not require a separate memory mention and by the way apna time ayega💪! Just kidding.

You can write down “Today my son beat his friend, told a lie to me about this fiasco which did hurt even more. We need to inculcate good habits in him” or “Today, I shouted on my colleague without a valid reason / to save my skin which is not correct” or “Today, I behaved in a very pathetic manner with my partner and I want to say sorry”. In these cases, you may deduct suitable amount with honesty in proportion with the bad feeling the event has created.

So, there you are: with a black and white copy of all your memories over the years in mostly 2 to 3 Memory Books. You can keep track of how many occasions made you happy and how many drew bad blood. And over a period of time, how you could reduce the bad ones created due to your own lapse.

There are a lot of benefits of this Memory Book as listed below:

1.      You can track what makes you happy and what makes you not happy. Accordingly, you can take appropriate measures.

2.      You can have a forced saving unless you have more ‘unhappy debits’ than ‘happy credits’ and mind you, over a period of time, you can save a good amount (via SIP route or otherwise). For example: We have been maintaining our Memory Book since 2011 and the amount deposited, enabled us to purchase a good 6-seater dining table for us though we plan to replenish the amount.

3.      These 2 to 3 Memory Books will give you decades of memories within a day or two refreshing how your choices changed over time, how you became mature, how your ‘reactions’ changed to ‘response’ with age, how your children grew up, how your relationship grew over time to the ‘break up’ zone err ‘hook up’ zone.

4.      You can find reasons to offer gratitude to the divine and the universe.

5.      You can inculcate this good habit among your children. It will definitely create a sense of bonding among family members.

Can you add more to the list? What is life? After all, it is collection of memories and nothing else.

Thank you all and Jai Shri Hari…

PS: The Featured Image is a snapshot of one of the pages of our Memory Book.