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I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.
You can send emails 10 years into the future! :)
I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.
I don't know, maybe it's not better but I think I would feel better with a flash drive or something physical (which I would backup and replace every so often).
I have those files somewhere, I protect them, back them up, and move them dutifully when I migrate to a new box, but I never ever read through them.
So, YMMV.
My purpose is similar, which is to only have it available to my loved ones after I die. I am hoping that whatever lessons I couldn't impart to them while I was alive, they could get from my writings.
I've also revealed to them that my journal exists so that they would know what to do when the time comes.
My journal is digital and it's spread across my computer, my phone, and on the cloud. I am planning to write a script to collect everything into one location to make it easier to go through it. I also plan to add a note to each family member, just in case they could not (or do not want to) read through the whole thing. I just hope I would still have the time to do all of this.
I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.
This is a really cool idea, but an email account? That seems pretty unsafe to me. Accounts can be closed at random, the email provider can go under. I don't know, maybe it's not better but I think I would feel better with a flash drive or something physical (which I would backup and replace every so often).
There have been a few comments on the long term accessibility of the account, like you mention. So I think it could be a good idea for me to look into doing a scheduled backup from gmail to a drive or other data storage option.
> An addict who was self-aware, and still couldn’t pull himself out from the abyss. My experience with addicts is that they are often self aware. Their appearance and circumstance might suggest otherwise. It's very easy to relegate these people to some category of cognitive failure. Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences…
> Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences – it isn't a disease of stupidity or inferiority. Sadly this is true for so many things -- depression, ADHD, extreme anxiety. And yet for the most part, society does not understand. Instead, people aren't trying hard enough, or they're not letting things make them happy, or they're…
I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.
You might also enjoy FutureMe: https://www.futureme.org You can send emails 10 years into the future! :)
I feel like I could only really understand my parents when I became a parent myself. All the fucked up stuff they did to themselves and each other (and sometimes to me), all the life lessons they tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to teach me - I'm doing some version of it, and it now makes more sense since I'm now where they were back then. I suspect it'll only fully make sense once I become a grandparent.
I try to explain to my kids the underlying life lesson that is trying to teach them. Don't leave it in a journal, leave it in their memories.
Not knowing how old your kids are, but they understand and can take on advice at an earlier age than you might expect. They may have tantrums about it, sure, but your explanations will stick with them, and consolidate the more explanations you give them.
Expecting kids to have common sense about cause and effect ("well, what did you think would happen?") is just so stupid in hindsight - they don't know because they haven't experienced anything with which to compare yet. I still occasionally make this mistake about my own expectations of their experience.
I think helping your kids to understand your reasons will give them a view into the real world in advance of having to enter it. Fore-warned is fore-armed.
One of the best things that's happened for my kids is having a cousin with learning difficulties. We (myself and my better half) have had to explain in great detail how their cousin's behaviour is as a result of the various defence mechanisms that are symptomatic of their learning difficulties and that 'not understanding' something as quickly as everyone else around you inevitably leads to frustration and anger and lashing out. It's not personal, it's their way of dealing with things, and as (generally) intelligent people, we need to have patience for that, whilst at the same time doing what we can to not spark her off, but also not accepting her behaviour if and when she does ignite.
We've had these conversations with the kids many, many times over the course of 7+ years, so it's not a one-shot deal by any means, but it has most certainly sunk in.
Parenting is ad-nauseum repeated effort, very slowly ratcheting up the level of detail of the world around them to match their level of growth and understanding. Don't underestimate what they're actually able to understand.
(I feel very strongly about this, potentially the most important topic in the world. They'll be running it one day, sow the right seeds.)