Tag Archives: sharing

Our online persona

No one shares all of who they are online. We share snippets, frozen moments, and smiling images. Some share to learn, others to reflect, others to seek attention. What’s clear is that we are not our public or online persona.

Writing and sharing daily, I’m keenly aware that I share a lot more than others do. How is this perceived by others? I’ve had some surprising feedback, some of it good, some of it disappointingly bad. I’ve even had it questioned if this was somehow taking away from my work day. That would have made me laugh if it wasn’t, at the time, so upsetting. I wrote a scathing retort that will probably never leave my drafts. It was cathartic enough just to write it.

And that’s what I’m reflecting on now, what do we chose to share and what do we keep to ourselves?

What do I keep to myself? What do I blog about? What do I expose? What do I hide?

A few years ago I went through 6 months of chronic fatigue. My family and coworkers knew, they had to know because I wasn’t running at full capacity no matter how hard I tried… but I didn’t really share any of this online until I found out it was from an extreme Vitamin D deficiency, and I was on the road to recovery.

I can remember going to a conference once and meeting a blogger whom I read regularly and admired. I was so excited to meet this person who ended up just being an ordinary guy who really didn’t want to talk about anything I was interested in talking about. It was a huge let down. This is especially true because before meeting him, I’d connected with so many amazing people at conferences who felt like instant friends, and whom I loved meeting face to face. I had met so many people that I felt I knew, and who exceeded my expectations as wonderful human beings. This guy just let me down.

But did he? Did he let me down or did I expect too much? Had I built him up to be something he wasn’t? Did I imagine him to be more than he was? Did I imagine my online interactions meant more to him than I should have?

On the flip side, who have I let down, disappointed, and even unintentionally ignored? Who has met me and thought, ‘Oh, that’s not the guy I thought he would be… that’s not the online Dave that I know.’

Whether we want to admit it or not, we don’t put our whole selves online. We refine our online persona by intentionally editing things out. We may not see ourselves the same as the Instagram teen deleting images that don’t get enough likes, but in some way we are one and the same. We choose to put some things ‘out there’ and we choose to leave some things out.

I have a friend who shares the most incredible photos of themselves having a wonderful time on Facebook, who I know is unhappy and struggles with depression.

I have another friend who in the past over-shared a tremendous amount of information about themselves. I was concerned and mentioned this to them. The response: “I’ve had people thank me for being so honest, and sharing things they are afraid to.” They were over-sharing in my eyes, not in theirs. It was beyond my comfort zone, not theirs. It was an uncomfortable level of sharing for me, not for them.

I can see that we are not our online personas. They are different than us. Even though this persona can say a lot about us… they don’t always say what we think they say.

How intentionally different to you is your online persona?

5 ways people are coping with a pandemic on social media.

Just a quick observation about the way people are coping with the Coronavirus pandemic via social media sharing:

1. Complaining/Blaming.

2. Oversharing bad news.

3. Using humour.

4. Sharing the struggle.

5. Sharing ideas, and resources.

The first 2 ways accomplish nothing, except to build anger, excite fear, and actually reduce the ability of others to cope well. What wasn’t done before isn’t as important as what can be done now. I’m not saying everything needs to be positive, but rather that some thought should be put into how much energy is spent spreading negative things that do not contribute to a more positive outcome.

Humour can be a wonderful escape and it can also be biting commentary that invites as much anger as laughter. I’ve caught myself reading some of the commentary on funny tweets and can tell that the joke isn’t always seen as funny. That said, I’ve been sharing some very clever jokes that I think can help us see that we are all in this together.

I’ve also seen some people sharing their struggles and others wrap around them for support. This is really beautiful to see.

Finally, I’ve seen some very informative posts that actually help people cope.

More than ever, it’s a good time to pause and think before you post.

Rinse and repeat

It was bound to happen. In fact, it might have happened before this and I simply didn’t notice. Writing a daily blog since mid July, I just caught myself sharing the same idea twice. It wasn’t until I published the idea that I caught myself rinsing and repeating the same idea.

Yesterday was the second time that I wrote about asking ‘What’s the third option?‘ when looking to make a tough decision. The first time I wrote about this was back at the start of November, three and a half months ago. The post, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place (and…)‘, was the original post, and it is an identical idea, except with greater detail than yesterday’s post.

I had no memory of sharing the idea before. In fact I would not have known that I did this had I not reread the post after publishing it. As I reached the end, I noticed the original title in the ‘Related’ posts section. Clicking on it, I realized very quickly what I had done.

What prompted the rewrite was a conversation with someone who refused to allow any suggestion of a third option. Why I started this post saying, ‘it was bound to happen’ is because part of writing is helping to formulate and express ideas in a concrete way. The process helps me put ideas together in a way that defines my thoughts on an idea more clearly.

However, over three months later, I’m not remembering whether I shared the idea through my writing, I’m just thinking about an idea that is in my head. At first, it was interesting to me that the second post was less detailed than the original. Then, I realized that the first post was written on a Saturday, and it made sense because I give myself more time to write on weekends.

I’m sure this will happen again. I will have moments when my creative juices are flowing and I’ll share fresh ideas… or at least fresh ideas to me. And I’ll have moments when I end up recycling or repeating older ideas. The process of writing every day will lead to some repetition, hopefully though, the ideas I choose to repeat are worth reading and thinking about again. I probably won’t re-share this idea of sharing my repeats again even if I catch myself, but if you catch me doing this, please feel free to let me know.

Things I can not share

One of the most interesting thing about working as a principal in a school is that there are many issues that I’d love to write about… but I can’t. Scenarios can easily by attributed to actual people, students/parents/teachers/staff/colleagues, and that would be unprofessional. Sometimes that makes writing this blog daily rather difficult, because much of my day is broken up into a series of things that are too personal or too specific to mention. Even in explaining this, I started to write a few ‘for example’ scenarios and thought better of it after trying. I don’t have a right to share things that can affect other people’s lives in a negative way, but I also don’t want to sanitize my thinking around a topic and make my writing unauthentic.

An example of a story I did share pretty quickly was “I’m a mop not a sponge” but in that case I was still in the meeting when I asked both the student and the parent if I could share this story (without names) and got permission… and this was a positive insight the student had and shared with his mother and I. His use of a metaphor intrigued me, as metaphors often do. This was an easy story to tell. Other stories are much harder.

Many challenges in schools can be summarized as: a) Someone was treated unfairly; b) Someone felt that they were treated unfairly; c) A decision that affects more than one person was deemed unfair. Put another way: actions, perceptions, and circumstances in relation to fairness are imbalanced. The moment I dissect one of these scenarios on my blog, I have the potential to undermine any resolution that may have come out of it. I would be unfair and disrespectful to some of the people involved.

I often deal with challenging things that I’d love to share… things that have consumed my thoughts and my day… things that I reflect on and would love to write about… but ultimately things that I can not share.

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