When I bring up that I enjoy writing and creating my own letters to people I met, I often get three reactions: a nod of confused understanding, people saying, “oh that’s cute”, or my favorite response “you are an old soul." I never have really thought that writing a letter or making my own handwritten letters would have such various responses. In a sense writing letters is an older practice that can be replaced through different means, a lot of people view it as a forgotten foreign form of communication. We write letters to communicate with others, but we also write letters because we find benefits through them.
Creating Importance through a Handwritten Letter
Because of these comments I often feel like I have to justify my reasoning of writing letters
and explain my whole idea of doing so. There has been research to back up my reasoning, but in reality, it comes to the feeling of importance when writing a letter.
I recently read an article from Greenville University’s student news outlet Papyrus, The Importance of Letter Writing, that shed new light on my viewpoints of the old soul technique. One thing said was how writing letters requires thought and
expands on the idea. A written letter isn’t just a tangible form of communication of paper, but it is curated process of thought and process.
Handwritten Letters Create Happiness
We live in a fast passed society where the idea of convinces is the first thing that comes to mind in a process. That is why I believe that most people suffice with just a quick simple auto generated text message when communicating with others. However, when writing a letter there is a thought process of feelings, ideas, and memories that curate and gather that can
be written on paper. When doing this I often feel happier.
Kent State Professor, Steve Toepfer, has studied the benefits of writing letters and why they make us happy. The study explored the ideas of showing gratitude and how that can improve health. Interesting enough throughout the study. Toepher says, “ If you are looking to increase your well-being through intentional activities, take 15 minutes three times over three weeks and write letters of gratitude to someone”. Writing out thoughts of gratitude that have been processed and explored increases happiness. Writing letters allows you to increase your gratitude and hence become happier as you reflect and navigate your thoughts.
Memories that are Created by Writing Handwritten Letters
Interesting enough there was a common theme throughout the Papyrus article regarding memories. Memories are not just created through significant events that happen like a birth of a child or a birthday party at an amusement park, memories can be created anyway and every day when there is a meaningful event. Even though letters imply that you are not there in person it shows that you are there in heart and a memory can still be created.
Camp Kippewa for Girls explains the lasting memories that can be emphasized through writing letters and how it is encouraged to write and share the memories that you make with someone and share it through a letter. This made me reflect on the time I spent across the country and the letters that I would receive from my family and people I met. They would often reflect on a memory and write words of gratitude to me. I often visit those letters and remember the moments that I associate with the time I was across the country and the memories I have made.
There are plenty more reasons on how writing handwritten letters is beneficial. Everyone has their own reasoning and their own influence. LifeHack has a large list of the benefits and why you should write letters.
Writing handwritten letters may be an “old soul” quality and distanced from this generation, but there are benefits to it as well. The curated thought and process of writing handwritten letters not only sparks interest to others but also brings happiness and creates memories.
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