The Story...

In January 2025, I nearly lost my apartment in the LA fires. 

When I got the evacuation order, I was at a job in Long Beach. A few minutes later, my ex-girlfriend called, sobbing, to tell me that she had just been in my neighborhood and that it was “in flames”. 

I was thoroughly terrified. Still, I raced home.

In the car, I tried to prepare myself for all potential scenarios. What if the road is blocked off? Would I approach on foot? What if my place is already on fire? Would I risk death itself to save anything? In a very real sense, I was confronted with page 71: “In an emergency, what item would I grab without thinking—and why?”

‍My answer was immediate, and crystal clear: I would grab my journals. 

I’ve been journaling since I was a kid and my journals are my most cherished possessions–and it’s not close. That night, I was prepared to run into a burning building to grab them, I promise you. Foolish as that may seem. I had the whole extraction plan mapped out in my mind.

To my relief, my place was not on fire when I arrived, and I was able to grab my journals, as well as a car full of other stuff, before I said a tearful goodbye to my home and left–thinking there was a 50/50 chance it would survive the night.

I got lucky: my home survived, but as we know so many others did not. I know people that lost their homes and I’ve seen firsthand the hardship it inflicted on good, honest families.

In this life, suffering is unavoidable, and as I mature I see that the ability to bounce back from tragedy–to try to create something good from it–is truly a superpower. A way to keep hopeful–to retain a belief that the future could be brighter and that we have a say in it. 

So, I decided to try to take the insight I gained from that night and do something useful with it. I decided to create this journal. As a way to help individual people fall in love with their own story. As a way to help the families that were affected by the LA Fires by donating a percentage of proceeds. Finally, as a way to help myself: to exercise my agency to take a traumatic experience and make something positive out of it.

I want to live in a better world, and I know that world starts with people like you. People that have looked inside themselves because people that are at peace with themselves want peace for others too.

That is why I created this journal. It is from the very questions I’ve asked myself over nearly 20 years of journaling that I built the list contained here. I know that if you answer them honestly, they will give you insights into your own life that will change your worldview–just as they did for me too.

Just wait, you’ll see. 

Sincerely, 
Eamonn Courtney