10 Sources to Help You Live a Life Worth Writing About
Rusty walks into the house and catches his father, standing there with his personal journal. “You promised you’d never read our journals. I trusted you,” he says. His father goes on to explain that he was flipping through the pages to check the dates to make sure Rusty and his sister are keeping up with their regular writings.
But then he caught a sentence that intrigued him: I remember that it hurt. Looking at her hurt.
His dad, a published author, was dying to know more. But there wasn’t anymore. There weren’t more details because Rusty wasn’t trying to tell this girl how he felt. He didn’t make any attempts to ask her on a date or hang out with mutual friends. Then the father delivers one of the best lines of the movie:
“Rusty, a writer is the sum of their experiences. Go get some.”
This is a scene from the 2012 movie “Stuck in Love.” I don’t actually recommend this flick, it was terribly slow and you spend half your time wanting to scream some sense into the characters. However, this scene has stayed in my head for years. It’s motivated me to go out and experience things that are worth writing about instead of waiting for them to happen naturally.
Life is about spending time with those you love. How about finding something original to do with them?
Here are 10 sources to help you find things to do that are worth writing about:
- Meetup: This social network brings people together in thousands of cities to do more of what they want to do in life. No matter what you enjoy doing, you can probably find a group of people here who share the same passion. If not, create your own group and start planning!
- Local Paper: Every Thursday, my local paper sends out a “72 hours” insert that contains almost all of the events going on in my town over the next 3 days. Check and see if your local newspaper does something similar.
- Facebook Events: It’s become significantly easier to find public events on Facebook. If you haven’t given this a try lately, you should. Simply log into your account and click on “Events” on the left sidebar.
- List Articles: Anytime I see a list article that interests me (ex. Must-see sites in Ireland, Places to Eat in Baltimore, etc.), I save them to Instapaper or pin them to a Pinterest board so that I can go back and look at it when I’m ready to plan a getaway.
- Groupon, LivingSocial or other deal sites: In addition to offering product-related deals, these sites also promote different fitness classes, baseball game tickets, or even paint night events. Just make sure that you use the deal after you buy it.
- Tourism websites: The goal of the tourism council of your state or town is to help people get out there and experience it. Fall in love with your area. Go check out what they’re promoting.
- TripAdvisor: Even if you think you know everything about your hometown, you probably don’t. Most people who live in the area never visit the sites that tourists come to see. Look up your town or a nearby location in TripAdvisor and check out their list of “Things to Do”.
- Food Network: One of my favorite shows to watch on Food Network is Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Did you know they post all of the locations on their website? Find a friend and take a road trip.
- Community College Classes: Community colleges usually offer an adult education program or other activities outside of their college courses. Check out their website to find classes on anything from sewing to starting your own business.
- Your Bucket List: If you don’t have one started already, what are you waiting for? There are tons of things to experience before you kick the bucket. Take five minutes and write down a list of destinations, concerts, exhibits, museums, anything you can think of that you’d love to see one day.
Writing in a journal helps you reflect on events and it can also help push you to experience more of what you love to do. What do you love to do? Why not do more of it?
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin
