It's alright. Just be you.

It is really easy to get caught up in what type of image you are presenting to the world. Based on X, will people think I am funny? smart? trendy? attractive? etc?

And now with all the public methods of communication online (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn), the feeling is only intensified. Now you have to have cute profile pictures, legions of friends, funny links, witty blog posts, etc. I think it stifles creativity. It makes people over-analyze how people will react to the ideas and information they put forward.

One of the most freeing things though is being able to let all of this go. Yes, it has taken a bit of time but I've realized that the best face for me to put forward is my own.

This might sound obvious but I have done a lot of censoring of myself over the years and it has never done me any good.

I am a goofball. I say things that are not particularly intelligent. I speculate. I am not quite at a point where I try to formulate opinions about content I feel is beyond me but I sure like passing it on if it struck a cord. I cannot spell for beans! I love silly videos of people singing about falling in love at the Apple store. I like my unflattering pictures (to a point) because that is the real me and it is way easier to be me then try to pretend to be something else.

In conclusion, as I would write in Elementary school, stop thinking so hard about what kind of content you put out on the web. Obviously, you might want to limit somethings, like that drunken rant you posted about your employer or the pictures of the rave you went to the night before a big presentation etc. But all-in-all, real-time web is moving so fast and producing so much content that your dumb post on Tuesday afternoon about frogs coming up SPDY will be ancient history by Wednesday evening, 14 texts, 23 emails, 450 RSS feed posts, and 3,421 tweets later.