Will The Real Micah Baldwin Please Stand Up?
A couple of days ago, I wrote a post entitled Accept Hope. For me, it wasnt something difficult or hard, because the very concept, words and thoughts in that post had been spoken and thought about for a long time. It just felt like it was the right time to write it.
You see, Doing The Right Thing, is something I fundamentally believe in. Its a concept that truly changed my life.
I have been going through a process of decision making this week. These decisions, both personal and professional, have been looming for quite awhile. I have learned over the past couple of years, that taking a moment to step back and review the decisions you are making, going to make and have made is good practice. I take all those decisions and I place them against my beliefs and ideals, and the wrong ones really EXPLODE and the right ones just fit.
After making my second big decision, I tweeted:
Soon after I got a dm from a friend that said: “I thought the right choice wasnt a choice at all.”
I responded with: “it’s always a choice. That’s why people fuck up.”
You see its the choosing where the mistakes are made, not the choices themselves. The choices are just that, choices. The rest is free will.
It truly amazes me to watch people continually make bad choices, even why they KNOW the right thing, and then justify the choice as lacking of free will.
When I wrote the post about how my bi-polar and the actions I chose in part because of it, and in part in spite of it, and where those actions brought me, I was just writing something I needed–wanted–to say. Mostly, because I have learned that, for me, writing is cathartic. (Remember, my first rule of blogging, is that I write for me. I assume no one is reading.)
What I didnt expect was the flood of positive response. It floored me. After all, I was just writing about me.
It was the reactions that made me think. Made me wonder why so many people consider me brave, when I am just doing what I feel is right. Why people use words like inspiration and impressed, when I know me, and I am a pretty big fuck up. It is honestly something that I am very uncomfortable with, but have to accept, because its just how people view me. Me? I can just be me.
I started writing this post with the intent of writing about how I dont have an offline and online identity, but I think the truth is that I do. I think most of us do, just some of us have a greater disparity between the identities. Me? I am pretty close to the Real Micah Baldwin offline and online.
I began to wonder why that is. I have heard that for some, their online identities are what they want to be, and for others they want to separate the two. I have spent a lot of time (and money) figuring out who I am, what I am, and what I am to others, and have come to terms with it. Frankly, I kinda like me. So, I have no reason to make the online me different from the offline me. (Even Micah Chic is me. Its the goofball me and its the arrogant me, but its still me.)
I thought I would write my thoughts as to what way is better. Should one be the same person online and offline? Should they be different? I dont know.
I just know that it took me a friggin long time to learn two things: 1) Im a pretty cool cat; and 2) how you view me is your bag, not mine.
Which leaves me, well, with me trying to be the best me. And if in doing that, I gain a bunch of friends that I admire and respect, and more so, that admire and respect themselves and each other, well then…
…I score.
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Nice write-up! I can share the sentiment. Reminds me og a blog post I wrote recently, “Why I love My Mistakes“
Don’t be afraid to making mistakes; don’t seek them out but embrace them when they happen and look for them to be the turning point to something great. They say “two wrongs don’t make a right” – sometimes they do, when you’ve learned from those two wrongs to create the right. Greatness is many things; however, it is often the summation of mistakes whose parts are the catalyst for something new, something great.
I hate when I make a mistake, but love looking back at the mistakes that have made me.
And that's why I wanted you to write about stuff that was still in progress… stuff you hadn't figured out yet. Because I like the lessons along the way better than the grand conclusions.
Really proud of you.
Very deep post – got me thinking.
Well put. Your accept hope post was inspiration for a recent post of mine about keeping it real. To me, you exemplify the meaning of being yourself, both online and off. I wish more people would take a queue from you and be themselves :-)
Good to hear your path of self-discovery, making choices, success and failure, learning about shades of grey. Definitely let the real you stand up.
As you know, I voted against over your #1 d.b. quest on Sphinn. I just didn't buy that it was anything close the the “real you” – maybe some kind of wacky idea or tangent – at best an inside joke that many people wouldn't understand. I was thinking “What the hell is this for? What exactly are you trying to accomplish / communicate / brand? Why spend your energy AND ask people to spend their energy linking to a dirty word?”
I've found “keeping it real” is tricky. I am a lot more than the sum of my thoughts, opinions and ideas (although the internet / social media empowers the illusion thoughts, ideas are everything). Also the line between my real feelings and my public feelings can get blurry – no matter how honest I try and be. If I openly and honestly said everything I thought – I would run into rocky patches with friends, family, relationships, business, the law. Also I've noticed that many of successful sales / bizdev / management types are rather skilled at maintaining various masks as the situation requires. It's something I struggle with cause I am too straightforward and hate politely agree and candy coat.
The Japanese have two words I like. 1.)tatemae – “enunciated principle – i.e., what you say in public / at the company / on the blog” and 2.)honne – “your real, dangerous, private, gut thoughts – what you REALLY think” . The Japanese banter around tatemae (to be civilized and comfortable in groups) but they read between the lines and use psychic powers to pick up on the honne.
A lot of what controls, motivates and inspires me is deeply, wickedly unconscious. I have to read deep in between the lines to even start to understand myself and what I'm “really” thinking and doing.
It sounds like you have been doing some self-reading and made some discoveries. Keep up the great work!
Does Micah wear pink? Or, does he wear maroon?
Sometimes, the answer is, “yes”.
Nice post – I just recently found your blog and you seem to have some interesting posts. It's interesting to see how you're discovering things in your life :)
Nice post – I just recently found your blog and you seem to have some interesting posts. It's interesting to see how you're discovering things in your life :)