30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Twenty Three: The Inertia Of Our Identities

5 years ago I was having a morning coffee with Steve Pavlina (if you're anything close to the blogging phenomenon, then you remember him, huge online presence in mid 2000s). He was in Bucharest for a couple of weeks and I took advantage of that to tie up some lose ends, spend some quality time with an influential blogger and, quite unexpectedly, to teach him a bit of Argentine tango. Yeah, at that time I was really big on dancing Argentine tango, to the point I was actually teaching it.

As we were sipping our coffee he told me something that, 5 years later, really stroke a chord in me: "You know, I'm still getting emails from people who still think I'm married and I got rid of coffee. Although none of these things is true anymore.". Steve divorced a couple of years before that visit in Bucharest and he also had a tentative to get rid of coffee about the same time. He actually wrote about both things on his - immensely popular, at that time - personal development blog.

But at the time of his Bucharest visit, none of those things was true anymore: he was happily divorced (already starting a new relationship) and he was also drinking coffee occasionally.

And yet, his online persona was still carrying echoes of his previous activities.

I remembered this because yesterday I experienced something similar. A Romanian blogger wrote a list post about 10 of the most influential entrepreneurs in his life and, to my surprise, I came in second.

It's been almost 2 years since my last entrepreneurial project, a co-working space in Bucharest. Since then, I'm enjoying a less spectacular life, with way less responsibility and risk, and with a lot more benefits: I work remote as a React Native programmer for a startup in UK. And yes, the word "enjoying" is very accurate, after years of stress and pressure I do enjoy this lifestyle a lot. Yes, I have to give away some of my time and, every once in a while, things get hairy and I have to work more than I'd want to, but, overall, I am more flexible and relaxed than before.

And yet, the years in which I was hustling and mentoring other entrepreneurs are still heavy enough to persist in the memory of a lot of people out there.

The reason I'm writing this is to bring into awareness that our digital identities are more inertial than we think. Whatever piece of information we share now is defining a more complex conglomerate of traits that will be collectively remembered as "you".

I don't know yet if this is good or bad, but I do know that there is a gap between our real lives and whatever other people remember as being "us" out there.

There is a real inertia of our identities and, the wider that gap it is, the more difficult will be for us to choose (and perform) another role in Samsara.


Previous posts in the challenge:

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.


Dragos Roua


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The longer the time people experienced their last "contact", the bigger the gap.

I remember how "shocked" I used to get when I was a kid and was watching TV serials. Whenever a TV show was interviewing the actors. The person you had a chance to see in realtime was very different from the actor you had in mind just because the TV serial was recorded years before.

the ghosts of Christmas past or I guess of past blogs ... ha ha

Salut @dragosroua! Cum pot lua legatura cu tine ?

http://steem.chat e locul, am acelasi nickname ca si aici :)

Very true
Digital image is completely different than real image.
You could only imagine and get fixated how a person could be and this completely changes when you meet them in real life.
excellent concept and writing @dragosroua

This is thought provoking, am so touched and challenged to impact/invest more on people than looking for money to buy Lambo.

I read all of your post
2 things i found really new for me
Argentine tango

images.jpeg

argentine-tango.jpg

&

Samsara

stufftoblowyourmind-23-2014-02-wheelofsamsara-full.jpg

Samsara-and-Nirvana.jpg

Resteemed on behalfe of mr. Samer @red-rose

Waoh, at number two of someone's most influential person, please come and influence me too. I want to be a big boy, rather a big man like you.

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