OK, I admit it. I’m a serial collector.
Throughout my lifetime I’ve collected stuff, often passionately, sometimes obsessively. Whether it was coins, baseball cards, phonograph records, old radio programs or comic books made little difference. Whatever I was collecting at a given time was important to me and consumed huge chunks of my discretionary time. Besides providing a great deal of satisfaction, my hobbies were also educational, teaching me social, negotiating and organizational skills, resourcefulness and an in-depth knowledge about the subjects of my collections.
In today’s lesson, I want you to explore how you’ve used the discretionary time of your lifetime. You may be surprised to find out how big a role your hobbies, extracurricular school activities and participation in organizations played in your development.
Let’s start by listing your hobbies and answer the following questions about each one:
• How old were you when you started?
• How did you get interested in it?
• What did you enjoy the most about it?
• Was your participation a solo affair, or did you share your passion with others?
• Did you ever consider turning your hobby into a business?
Now let’s look at each of the extracurricular school activities you were involved in:
• How did you get interested in it?
• What did you find most satisfying about it?
• Did you ever receive any awards or recognition for your efforts?
• What were some of the highlights of your participation?
• Did you develop any strong personal relationships because of the activity?
Run through the same questions for clubs and organizations you have been involved with, as a member, volunteer or leader. Write as much as you can about each situation and add it to your timeline.
Tomorrow: Who’s on first? That would be you.
This is Lesson No. 15 of a mini-course on how to write a personal history. The course will continue throughout May, which is Personal History Month. To get future lessons delivered to you, you may subscribe to our RSS feed or get e-mail delivery to your inbox. It’s easy. Details can be found in the column to the left of this post.
Flickr photo courtesy of Piedmont Fossil.
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