Chai's Blog

How much is too much

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As a per­son­al blog­ger most­ly writ­ing about myself, my biggest dilem­ma is to decide how much is too much. I often won­der if I am expos­ing myself too much on the inter­net. Until recent­ly, I did not even dare to have my pho­to on this blog. I am cer­tain­ly not ready to post my fam­i­ly’s pho­tos here. I may, in the future, but for now, I play safe. And I don’t know what’s the harm with shar­ing per­son­al pho­tos on the blog. I still pon­der.

On the oth­er hand, I love writ­ing. Writ­ing well is impor­tant to me. I write a lot in my day job about soft­ware and tech­nol­o­gy. I believe no one can prac­tice enough of any skill, let alone writ­ing. So I use this blog to prac­tice a dif­fer­ent form of writ­ing. It is easy for me to write about myself. Which is what I do here.

I could write pri­vate­ly. But I enjoy read­ing per­son­al blogs of nor­mal peo­ple around the world shar­ing their day-to-day life. I find those per­son­al blogs far more enjoy­able to read com­pared to read­ing some­thing like lat­est iPhone or movie reviews or even news. Per­son­al blogs are enlight­en­ing and at times inspir­ing. This, com­bined with my reluc­tance to be a pas­sive con­sumer, makes me blog about myself. Although, deep down I am afraid of mak­ing myself vul­ner­a­ble to judge­ment.

Okay, Seth Godin is not your ordi­nary Joe but I found this inspir­ing quote from his 6000th blog post on his per­son­al blog that he pub­lished today:

It does­n’t mat­ter if any­one reads it, buys it, spon­sors it or shares it. It mat­ters that you show up.

Seth linked to anoth­er great post titled Shut Up, Sit Down, and Type which high­lights some­thing I deeply believe:

So what­ev­er the voic­es or grem­lins in our heads are say­ing, our response is the same: just show up every day and do the work.

And last­ly, today’s install­ment on The Dai­ly Post artic­u­lates what I love most about per­son­al blogs:

I am drawn in by their pas­sion, not by their per­fec­tion.

All this will get me going for the next 200 posts. 

Comments

7 responses to “How much is too much”

  1. Cindy Naidoo Avatar
    Cindy Naidoo

    WOW! I also love read­ing about peo­ple’s per­son­al every day expe­ri­ences! And that quote by Seth Godin is so inspi­ra­tional. I am always so afraid that no one is going to read my posts. Look­ing for­ward to read­ing about your nor­mal every day life 🙂

    Reply
    1. Chaitanya Avatar
      Chaitanya

      Glad to know you too like read­ing every­day sto­ries of peo­ple.

      “Always write for your­self”, is the advice I heard from many good writ­ers.

      Reply
  2. mypersonalteenlife Avatar
    mypersonalteenlife

    I’ve been won­der­ing the exact same thing too! Its under­stand­able that you’re not sure whether to post fam­i­ly pic­tures, I’m hon­est­ly not sure if I’ll ever post fam­i­ly pic­tures yet too

    Reply
    1. Chaitanya Avatar
      Chaitanya

      It is a tricky deci­sion. I know some blog­gers who share their fam­i­ly pho­tos. I think it depends on how com­fort­able you are about expos­ing your life on the web. Obvi­ous­ly, every­one’s mileage will vary.

      Reply
      1. mypersonalteenlife Avatar
        mypersonalteenlife

        True, true

        Reply
  3. Rachel M Avatar
    Rachel M

    Well, as you know, I’m pret­ty com­fort­able with putting my life up on the web. I’m just amazed that it’s inter­est­ing enough for any­one to read 🙂

    Reply
    1. Chaitanya Avatar
      Chaitanya

      I can’t tell you how inspir­ing your turn­ing 40 post was, just to quote one exam­ple. It spurred me to aspire to be at least half as good when I turn 40.

      Reply

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