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writing these things down is that it shows you how life is cyclical: Everything comes back and keeps on coming back. The problem is that our memory is very small and very forgetful. You’ll be fascinated to see how your high points and low points repeat themselves, and your life history will have a solution for everything in your life.
    I know what you’re thinking. Don’t be afraid; it won’t take up too much of your time. All you need to do is write for a few minutes each day and gather together objects andthings that are comparable to X-rays or the results of blood tests. These are important: There’s no good record that doesn’t contain evidence (in this case bits of your life). They could be bits of napkin (from the restaurant where you managed to get something you wanted), rocks from some beach (where your life took one step forward and you felt complete), or even just the ticket from the parking garage at the shopping center where you parked the day you saw the film that changed your life.
    Your life record will get bigger and bigger and eventually maybe you’ll need to buy a second and a third file.
    If you’re lucky, one day you’ll die (yes, if you’re lucky) and your children, your friends, your yellows (who are your yellows, you wonder? We will get to that in due time) will inherit this life history and will know what it was that made you happy, what made you feel complete. Is there anything more valuable than that they should know you better? I don’t think so. This is the true reward: to open up the private boxes of the people we love and know more about them. I have so many friends with information hidden away within them, and whenever I find out something more about them I feel happier, more complete.
    Here’s the list for your life record:
    1. Buy a file that’s large, almost like a box. You get to choose the color, but I recommend gray.
    2. Every day write down three or four things that have made you feel happy. Only this: Don’t force yourself too much. Write: “I felt happy today.”
    3. Next, write down when, where, and why. Does everythinghave to be connected to happiness? No, of course not. You can talk about nostalgia, smiles, irony. But everything has to be positive. In a medical record you don’t write about anything apart from mishaps, problems, and recuperation; in a life record you should talk about life, positive, happy life. Carry out this exercise: Think about good things that have happened to you, with whom and where. Little by little you’ll discover patterns. People who make you happy, places and times of day that make you feel more alive.
    4. Include physical material. Whenever you can, incorporate an object that’s got some relationship to the particular moment. Objects become impregnated with happiness and should be in your life record. Anything will do; all it has to do is belong to the place. But don’t put in thousands and thousands of objects; you have to be selective or else your life record will end up eating your house.
    5. Reread it; touch it when you feel bad and sad and also when you feel happy. At least once every six months give it a once-over; examine your life record. You’ll discover things, patterns that show you how you are. Every extra 1 percent of yourself that you discover is a step further toward another state of mind.
    6. Gift it: Leave it to someone when you die. Remember, it’s not just for you, but also for other people, the people who love you.
    I think that the day someone inherits my medical history and my life history will be a marvelous one. The person whogets them will be happy with both records. One will tell him how many leucocytes I had in October 1988, what my left leg looked like in X-rays (there’s not a lot of people who know that), and, above all, will give him that final horizontal line. How beautiful a single line can be! The other record will show him why I laughed, what I got excited about, why I died. I think I’ll give