When I started talking about my year writing 365 gratitude notes, I anticipated questions about how I managed to write a card a day (I didn’t; I wrote them in batches of 5 or 8); whether I’m keeping up the practice (yes but not at the same clip); which benefits I experienced (I list 13 in the book, one for every chapter). 

What I hadn’t anticipated was the question I hear most often: What if my handwriting sucks? Who knew this was such a sticking point! Listen, without daily practice, most of our handwriting kind of sucks! But you know what, it truly doesn’t matter.

Here are six reasons you should set aside your handwriting hangups:

1. Personality > perfection. A good letter is a representation of you. It should mimic an intimate conversation, which might be meandering and funny, perhaps with crossed out words or oddball asides. Your imperfect handwriting (and mine, see above) adds interest and personality.  

2. The recipient probably won’t notice either way. As the note writer, you are caught up in thinking about how you will come across, and that includes your handwriting. But the receiver is not thinking about the same things that you are. They are too busy feeling warm and fuzzy while reading your words to criticize the penmanship or card choice.

3. Handwriting helps you remember facts. Which is handy when you are thinking back, trying to recall specific memories from long ago. Researchers from Norwegian University of Science and Technology led a study in which they scanned the brains of adults and children while they took exams, and found that the brain is more active when writing by hand. They concluded that pressing pen to paper activates the senses and opens up the brain for learning and remembering. 

4. Handwriting is a piece of you that will remain when you are no longer in the room… or on this earth. Humor my morbidity here. Shortly after college, I was at a party at my friend’s childhood home. I followed the host’s wistful-seeming gaze to a printer, of all things, and when we made eye contact he touched the yellowing label, explaining that it was his late mother’s handwriting. If her handwriting about printer instructions affected him, imagine what a treasure a heartfelt letter would be. Or perhaps you don’t need to imagine, because you have correspondence from dearly departed family members tucked away in a safe place, as I do. 

5. Maybe it’s not about the handwriting? Forgive the amateur therapy session, but maybe the handwriting hang-up is masking a bigger insecurity: that your thoughts and feelings won’t matter to this person; that you don’t have anything of interest to say. Please believe me: You do. 
 

6. Because it’s beautiful. I’ll let my former boss at O, the Oprah Magazine, Lisa Kogan, bring this home: “Because cursive is that place where art and language intersect, and because how you form your words says almost as much as the words themselves, and because handwriting tells us something about who the person holding the pen really is, and mostly because it’s beautiful.” Yes, even yours.