Why write letters? We feel connected on a daily basis. Our phone is blinking with notifications when we wake up and go to bed. We know that people are thinking about us, so why bother with the outdated art? Here are a few of the reasons I came up with.
- It’s more personable. It reminds people that you love them. You took the time out of your busy schedule to sit down and write your thoughts for someone else to read. Now that's what I call caring.
- It keeps your writing skills up to par. The more you write letters, the more you develop your style and summary skills. You only have so much space, and you want to keep your friend or family member interested. So it's almost like writing a little story each time- you want it to be interesting and to the point.
- It gives you something to look forward to. Writing is awesome because it's the gift that gives back. After you've written and sent off your lovely letter, a sense of anticipation remains as you wait for the next letter that they write to you.
- It's the surest way to brighten someone else's day. The excitement that you get from receiving a letter is reciprocated when someone else receives your letter. It feels good to know that you are the source of somebody else's excitement and that you have the ability to make someone's day. It's even better if you can include some stickers or pretty stationary, depending on who the person is and whether or not they like happiness.
- It can minimize unnecessary communication by text. When you write letters, you want to have as much information as possible to communicate. This desire translates into less unnecessary communication on a daily basis so that you have more content to infuse your letter with.
- It connects you with people that you wouldn’t normally talk to. Writing can open up the door to building relationships with grandma, that cousin you only see at Christmas or your friend from France. Then when you see those people, you feel like you can pick up where you left off. You don't need to go through the awkward small-talk or bland summaries of how "college is cool, food's not bad and I like my friends."
- In addition to the last one, you learn things about people that you may not gather from one family dinner or a Thanksgiving get-together. I can attest to this one personally. Ever since I began writing my grandma, I gathered tons of information about her childhood that she may not have remembered within an hour segment of us talking. When she gets to sit down and reflect, I get the pleasure of hearing the best summary of her thoughts as possible.
- Writing letters gives you a record. It's fun to look back on letters that you wrote a few years later. You get a little snapshot into your own life and a record of somebody else's, too.
- It just gives you a time of peace and rest. It's nice to just take a break from life and sit down to pen your thoughts. Maybe you can even put on some nice music and sip a cup of tea. At the least you'll get a good Instagram picture out of it.
