Whether you were around for the Roaring Twenties, the Great War, or the Summer of Love, you’ve lived. You have a story to tell. If you’ve attempted to record your life stories, however, you know just how daunting a task it can be.

Having coached students from ages 12 to 93 in memoir writing (yes, even a six grader has a good yarn or two to share), I can vouch for how rewarding the experience can be. So to entice you to write your memoirs, I’ve compiled a list of reasons.

1. No one else will do it for you. Unless you’re Tiger Woods or Lindsey Lohan, chances are there is no one breaking down your door to write your memoirs. That’s not to say that ordinary lives aren’t important. In fact, in my humble opinion, quite the opposite is true. But let’s face it: it’s up to you to record your life stories.

2. No one else CAN do it for you. Think about it: only you can recall what your first grade classroom looked like or the taste of those cupcakes your little sister made that time. (You remember: the ones where she substituted sand for flour?)

3. You’ll carry on the stories you heard from your ancestors. There’s a great Yiddish adage: “Old age, to the unlearned, is winter; to the learned, it’s harvest time.” Your memoir will likely include stories and advice from those that came before you. When you record what your parents and grandparents said and did, you bridge generations and make voices from the past immortal.



4. You’ll preserve a portion of the history of your city, state and country. By writing your memoirs, you’ll articulate your experience of the neighborhoods you’ve lived as they changed through history. Maybe you remember streetcars. Draught beer for a dime. The farms outside of town before the local mall was built. These kinds of details are valuable to your community.

5. You’ll be the voice of a generation. Whether you served under Patton, marched with Martin Luther King or watched the footage of the Moon Landing from a maternity ward, you represent a generation. The things you’ve seen and done are as remote from the children of today as the Earth is from Mars. Remember life before television? Vietnam? The microchip? 9/11? Today’s kids don’t. There’s value in showing them what the world was like back in the day.

6. You’ll help others. In describing how you survived hard times, you’ll teach useful coping skills to your descendants. Remember when money was tight? When your high school crush didn’t quite feel they same way you did? A record of how you dealt with these experiences teaches others how to go through life gracefully. You may even help future generations to make the world a better place.

7. Storytelling is a wonderful skill. Writing about your life is excellent training for telling all kinds of stories. Once you get the knack, you can organize and communicate all kinds of thoughts more effectively—whether you’re explaining a task at work or telling a joke at a party. And let’s face it: good storytellers are interesting people to know.

8. You owe it to your mind. Great news: writing is good for your brain. It’s a challenging mental activity, and research shows that mental challenges sharpen our mental agility and stamina, no matter what our age.

9. You owe it to your soul. Memoir writing heals old wounds. It changes the way you view your life, in all its moments of glory and disaster. Writing about your experiences forces you to confront unresolved feelings and, in so doing, inspires personal bravery. You’d be surprised how therapeutic it can be to “write through” painful events from the past.

10. You owe it to your family. Your descendants should know that you were a real person and not just a name on a tree. And there’s no better heirloom you can leave your family than a record of your experiences.