I’m lucky to be in a position to be asked advice on things. Mostly Paris and creativity. These are things I know.

May is the beginning of tourist season in Paris. Usually I start getting emails about what to do and where to spend time if one has two days, five days, two weeks in Paris. It’s a little different this year, of course. When I lived in Paris, I would spend a few days walking out-of-towners around my neighbourhood, taking them to my favourite haunts and giving them a few tidbits of interesting information at each one. It wasn’t exactly a walking tour since I forgot most of the historic details of each place. I told them what I remembered or what I found interesting, then when our feet were tired, we would find a café with a nice view of the street. The lazy tourist. That’s how I rolled.

This week, I connected with a lady and her niece. The niece had just graduated from college and was about to move to Los Angeles. LA is another topic I know a lot about.

I wanted to take her aside and tell her so many things.

“Forget the Eiffel Tower. You need to know about parking in Beverly Hills.”

As someone who lived in LA for a long time toiling away at the ol’ career, I had much to offer this young grasshopper. I wanted to tell her that LA is a big town and she’ll need a good car with great gas mileage. I wanted to tell her to use sunscreen because too many people have parts and pieces lobbed off their noses and ears. I wanted to tell her to live beneath her means and to not let Whole Foods make her lazy in the kitchen. They may cut all her vegetables, but in doing so they will cut deep into her paycheck, too. I wanted to tell her to learn to surf and spend as much time at the ocean as possible. Ditch the makeup and let the hair fall as it may. That’s the look. Don’t fall for the prices at Forever21. The fabric doesn’t last beyond a few washes.

But mostly I wanted to tell her to keep a journal.

Because if I were at the beginning of my career and green with life skills, I would have wished someone would have told me to keep a daily journal. I believe I would have been happier and better at life sooner.

Daily journal writing = Life design 101

Luckily, I came across Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way early on (but not early enough) which explained the magic of morning pages, which is writing three pages a day in a journal every day.

Writing in a journal has helped me figure out my life. Simple. Each day I carved out time in my day to figure out finances, heal heart ache, ponder creative path, and plan the day, week, and year. It was the place where I figured out how to save up, pare down, quit my job and travel. On the road, the journal was my home base. The one place that was familiar when everything around me was different.

I wrote to learn what I knew.

And what I knew was that I was the boss of me and I had all the inner resources I needed to effectively deal with my situations. That when life went askew, I could pull back, open my journal and figure out what to do. Most of all, I wrote down my angst in a private place so I didn’t have to offload it onto others and stink up the joint with my foul mood. Everyone around you can smell your vibe… what’s your signature blend?”

Sweet with a hint of spice.

In the end, I didn’t tell the young grasshopper much at all beyond a few tidbits about Paris. My spidey sense said she wouldn’t have heard me anyway.

Youth. That whole thing.

But I would have loved to tell her about the magic of journaling.

By the way, my new ecourse is about what to do with all your journal pages. How to organize the mess, find the gems and create something out of it. All my books and letters started as journal entries. There is a formula and a method to make it not an overwhelming slog. I promise. And it’s on sale for the month of May.

And now, I’ll will make a cup of coffee, open my journal and begin my day…