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This I Believe: Your Journal Isn't Mean Enough | Davie S.
January 11, 2026
The 'This I Believe' essay project invites Northwood Technical College students to reflect on the personal values, lessons, and experiences that shape who they are, putting students first by encouraging authentic self-expression and critical reflection.
Inspired by the 1950s radio program hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow, 'This I Believe' began as a national platform for people from all walks of life, including presidents, poets, teachers, and truck drivers, to share the beliefs that guided their lives. Decades later, NPR revived the series from 2005 to 2009, reigniting a movement of storytelling that continues to build understanding and respect.
In English Composition 1 courses, students carry forward that tradition by writing their own 'This I Believe' essays. Through this process, they strengthen their voices as writers and thinkers while contributing to Northwood Tech’s mission of transforming communities through education and shared understanding.
By reflecting on what they believe, students engage in meaningful collaboration, learning from themselves, their peers, and their community. This project reflects the college’s values of innovation, community, and student success as each essay helps illuminate the principles and experiences that unite and inspire us all.
Select student essays are featured on the college website with permission from the writer.
Your Journal Isn’t Mean Enough
by Davie S.
Journaling is well known as a great tool for self-reflection, self-discovery, recording our day-to-day experiences, setting goals, and making to-do lists. We also know that it can serve as a safe space for our private thoughts. Journals have been recommended by great minds throughout history, influential leaders of society, therapists and mental health professionals, English teachers, for decades.
Some people will tell you the right way to journal, but there is no truly wrong way to do it, as long as you are actually writing. The best journal is simply the one you fill up.
But I believe that no matter how honest you are when expressing your inner thoughts and feelings, you can and should be even more honest. You should be brutal. You should be MEAN.
It is important to have someone we feel safe with to vent to—whether that’s family, friends, or work acquaintances. Even strangers can be nice to talk to if the situation allows it. However, even with trusted people, we often feel internal pressure to self-censor. We worry about offending them or changing their opinions of us. Even with someone we trust, we can’t lay all our thoughts and feelings on them, as they might not be up for it on any given day. They could be going through their own rough patch. If a relationship goes wrong, how do we know that the person won’t share what we said in an unguarded moment? What if they like to gossip? Stranger things have happened than someone betraying someone else.
Your journal is just for you. No one else has to see it. Therefore, you can and should use it to let your inner demons out. Every mean thought you’ve had—directed at yourself, a friend, a partner, an ex, a politician, a celebrity, a CONCEPT—is safe in the pages of your journal. Every snide comment, every less-than-upstanding observation, every childish feeling, and every socially unacceptable rant should be splattered across those pages. Everything you dislike about yourself and others needs to be let out.
Use your journal as an opportunity to vent. Don’t hold back. Not only that: you should push yourself further. If you write something questionable, lean into it. Add to it. Let out the beast. Or perhaps, let out the wailing banshee. Release the demon, the angel, the dictator, the vigilante, the warrior, the scared child, and the angry adult. Take every point and make it into seven points of escalating emotions and raw honesty. It should be so horrible that only your eyes get to see it.
We need a place to vent and be honest with ourselves. It fosters a sense of safety within us. You should be the person you trust the most. Don’t put that burden on someone else; put it on yourself. Keep yourself safe. Get to know yourself. Know your ugliest parts, and then keep them safe.
I have been journaling for a long time, but I never truly vented until this past year. When I did vent, I would often follow up with a sentence about what I should feel or how I should fix the situation. I would try to explain myself, to myself. I would hesitate and censor myself, trying to conform to what I thought I should be. This was useless. Learning to let go was hugely freeing, and it has made me a better person.
You could consider keeping a vent journal separate from your tamer journal. I’ve seen videos of people burning their vent pages, just in case someone decides to snoop. There are techniques like writing over the same words repeatedly so that they become illegible. If you are a linguistically motivated person, why not create a conlang, a secret language of You. Do what you need to do. Take the steps that make you comfortable enough to be honest.
Don’t hold back. Don’t be nice. Let it all out!
