I Just Gotta Be Me
My habit is to blog daily about something technical, something not technical, a link to a topic to share and a picture of the day. This means that my idea wheels start spinning when I get up in the morning. Sometimes they spin all day without gaining much traction and I have to resort to the one topic I know most intimately, me. My blog tends to cycle into autobiography on a regular basis, not because I've lived this amazingly interesting life, but because I need something to write about and I don't mind sharing. I started attending 12 Step meetings 37 years ago and, in those rooms, people are often told "you're as sick as your secrets." The motivation isn't to put your business in the street, it's to be open and honest with someone or some group. Having lived that was for so long, I'm in the habit of being pretty open about things other people might tend to hide.
I can be choosy about where I share. Not a single person in my office knows I am in recovery. They don't know that I've lived with a treatable mental illness for nigh on 40 years. They don't know how many times I've been married. You know who does know all that stuff? The Internet and all my family and every close friend I have. If someone from the office were to stumble on this blog and learn all of my close to the chest stuff, I still wouldn't care. It's not likely to be what we chat about while we are getting ready to go hang wi-fi access points. We're there to work and that's what we do.
I don't fault anyone who blogs anonymously or chooses not to reveal much personal info. We are all in different places in our lives. We have different needs, different comfort levels and different goals. I'm a pretty happy guy and I feel like a success, not because I achieved a bunch of lofty goals or made millions of dollars. I didn't. What I did do was survive stuff that could have killed me or made me permanently miserable. I have decent or better than decent relationships with every important person in my life. I have the gumption to speak out wherever and whenever I feel like it and I do so regularly, on this blog, at the dinner table, in the office and in public when it's called for.
I would not be happy or enjoy blogging if I were constantly trying to self-censor. If I had to worry about what people thought before I posted something borderline controversial, I'd go nuts. I didn't choose a path in life that required me to do that. What purpose does openly sharing serve? Well, hopefully I can present it with enough humor and humility that it's at least a little bit entertaining. If someone in similar circumstances reads about this or that struggle, I've had and reaches out to me, then Yahoo Mountain Dew! I get a chance to share some experience and some hope. I get a daily release of whatever is on my mind, whether it be the latest odd thing to catch my attention or something deeply personal. I just sit down at my keyboard, pound away for a little while and BLAM! I feel better
Here are a few of my favorite posts and none of them are TMI to me.
The Gratitude Habit | Living Out Loud (louplummer.lol)
My Retirement Disaster | Living Out Loud (louplummer.lol)
My Rules for Me | Living Out Loud (louplummer.lol)
The Fourth Time is a Charm | Living Out Loud (louplummer.lol)
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