Writing a personal history was not something that I decided to do on a whim. I got the idea from this American life several years ago. If you are not familiar with the show, it is essentially a place where various peoples personal histories are played to interested listeners all over the country. Listening to all of those personal biographies, I realized that there was enough to my life to make it worth reading about. It is true that I have lived the simple life for the most part, never really rocking the boat. Nonetheless, I have known a lot of interesting people and studied a lot of interesting subjects. I have traveled all around the world. In short, there is enough to my personal history to make it at least worth writing.
Fortunately, I have kept track of most of my personal history. The problem is that I have not kept track of dates as well as I have of the events. I have been alive for more than 60 years, you see, and sometimes it is a little bit hazy what happened in what order. I decided to do some personal history research. I figured that government archives would be the best bet. I started with a personal criminal background check, personal tax records, credit history, and the like. It was amazing how much I found. Say what you want about the decline in privacy rights in the modern world ? personal records are great for anyone who wants to do background research on themselves.
Nonetheless, this research was not enough to do my personal history. I am a pretty decent writer, but I had never undertaken such an ambitious project before. I had such an overwhelming amount of research to do than I did not know how to organize all of it. Finally, I got a personal history writing software program. It was a little bit like having my own personal historian. It understood the structure of organizing personal histories, and would help me fit my personal information into that structure. Although it did not do most of the work for me, It did do the hardest parts ? organizing things. Because of that program, I am well on my way to writing a personal history. It has been a lot of work, but I figure that I only have one life to live. If I do not write a personal history, I won’t have a chance to reflect on the meaning of my life and what I have accomplished.
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