Postcards From Myself

Thanks to Facebook I have been reunited with some great people from back in my high school days. Now you have to understand, I was not one of the “in” people in school. In fact, if I remember correctly, I was fairly disagreeable. And after school I lost contact with almost all of those folks that I had known.

But now it is nearly 30 years later and time has mellowed me – a bit. And I find that all those people I used to know are still out there, and guess what, for some reason they remember me fondly! No idea why, but these are some great people and they still want to be friends with me. Will miracles ever cease?

At the moment I would just like to mention two of the people. The first is Lydia Montgomery. She surprised me when she contacted me. And she just kept on surprising with her friendship, generosity, and humor. Can someone please tell me why I didn’t hang out with her more back then? Makes no sense.

The other fine lady is Liz DeLoach. Now here is smart, funny, successful woman if I ever saw one. Doubt that? Take a look at the guest article she wrote for my professional site – Why Businesses Should Have a Website and a Facebook Page. She is dead on target and addressing a very timely issue. Amazing what people you grew up with can do when enabled. And then there is the simple personal caring she has shown for me and my family recently. I am humbled.

Now don’t get me wrong, these are two great women, but they are only two of the people I have reconnected with recently. To these and all the rest, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for the past, but even more so, thanks for the great years to come!

You have one life. Whether you believe in rebirth, reincarnation, or just darkness after death, you still have just one life to lead. You do not get a life for work, a life for family, and a separate one for everything else. This has always been true, but increasingly it is becoming more evident, and people are starting to wake up to the fact that it is this oneness that can help bring happiness or despair.

There is a saying that you can only be content when what you say, what you do, and what you believe are all the same. Mind, body, and spirit in agreement. When you try to say one thing but do another, you introduce stress and discontentment into your life. For proof, just look at Elliot Spitzer, Ted Haggard or John Edwards. Not only did these men all have great public trials to face when the news of their actions came out, even greater was the inner turmoil they faced.

Other examples can be seen in companies that talk about fiscal responsibility but still cling to wasteful ways of private jets and corporate perks. Or groups that preach green behavior but still waste paper, food, or gasoline. Or the individual who goes to church and prays for the poor on Sunday and then walks silently past the Salvation Army bucket on Monday. And how many people are there who say we should help the immigrants but still won’t hire them or who recoil from them in social situations.

All of these actions create turmoil within us and cause us to be less than content. And in no greater place is this evident than the Internet. As social media becomes more and more pervasive, our different roles in life become increasingly visible without borders. When I go to hire a new employee and Google her name, I do not separate that this Facebook profile is personal while this LinkedIn profile is professional. Which one should I use to evaluate this future employee? I am going to use both. And when I look up a new acquaintance on MySpace and see what he is talking about there and then follow him on Twitter and see what he is saying or doing, I do not separate these things into different areas of my mind. No, it all goes in there together.

I find it interesting that some prospective employees still find it hard to believe I would use Google or other methods to look them up on the web before doing an interview. Wouldn’t you investigate a prospective employer before going to an interview? If no, you should. Shouldn’t you know if the company you are looking at has any good or bad press? What about civic awards or criminal prosecutions? Or maybe since those things happened in a different area of the company then they don’t apply to you. Nope, didn’t think so.

See what I am saying? The Internet makes what few walls there are between parts of are lives increasingly transparent. I have always prided myself, for better or worse, on being one person. The Michael you see at works is the same one you will see at the soccer games and the same one you will see at home or church. There is nothing on my work related sites that my friends shouldn’t see and nothing on my personal sites that I wouldn’t want an employer or colleague to know. And I will tell you what, living that way makes life a lot less stressful.

Technorati Tags: facebook, google, happiness, myspace, twitter

As more people follow your blog, twitter stream, Facebook page, or forum posts do you change the message or the way you talk? Understandably we all have to use different voices depending on the audience. We don’t, or at least shouldn’t, address our grandparents in the same way that we talk to our young friends. And we certainly shouldn’t be talking to the people at work in the same way that we talk to our children – trust me, I have tried it and it isn’t pretty.

The question remains though, do you significantly change your message? If all of a sudden I become aware that some relatively important people are now reading my twits on Twitter, is it appropriate or even wise to change the way I use that medium or what I am saying on it?

On one hand, they must have followed me for a reason. So, if I change to make myself more serious or less controversial then perhaps I am changing away from what they were looking for. On the other hand, maybe they didn’t know what they were getting themselves in to. Maybe I need to clean up my act so that I am more “acceptable” to these people and can hopefully keep them around as followers so that I can get my message out. But then, is it my message if I have changed for them?

Again, you are going to dress up for a job interview, you are going to be quiet in a library, and you are not going to curse around a minister. But, you went into those situations knowing that you would moderate your behavior. If someone enters your environment, of their own will and knowing what lies there, do you change to suit them, or to what you think suits them?

What are your thoughts? I really need to hear you on this one. And thanks for following along!