Openness vs. Privacy - A Struggle

I’m a big believer in the millennial values of openness, transparency and honesty. I like to think that my interactions with other embody those values. Lately, however, I’ve been realizing that I’m also a very private person. Sure, I’m on facebook, twitter, linkedin, and I keep a blog, but if you follow me on any of those media, you’ll notice that I don’t update very frequently, and when I do, it’s not particularly revealing. So, I’ve been analyzing my private behavior in the face of my belief in openness, and I’ve come to realize a few of the driving factors behind my lack of updates.

1. Humility. Being humble doesn’t mean not being confident. It means having a healthy sense of self and one’s place in the world. I often don’t think to post or update about things because I feel others would not be interested in it. The world doesn’t need or want to know what I had for breakfast or that I did laundry today.
2. Fear. I’ll admit, I’m terrified of being judged. I have all kinds of wacky non-mainstream interests, hobbies, and thoughts, and I’m afraid that if I talk about them or share them, people will think less of me. I’m also afraid of being boring, so if something seems mundane or trivial, I’ll choose not to talk about it because I want others to think I’m interesting.
3. Privacy. As I mentioned, I do think certain things are best kept private. The world does not need to know about my sex life or my bowel movements (which is kind of a shame, because both can be quite interesting. . .) I also try to keep any discussion of health issues to a minimum unless they are specifically related to the topic at hand.

I feel my reasons for keeping my life private, for not updating the world constantly about my activities, are generally reasonable. I sometimes wish others would keep those things in mind when they update their social media pages. At the same time, though I recognize that the people I like most, the people I feel the most close to, despite perhaps not knowing them in real life or seeing them frequently in person, are the people who update frequently. Who share the small things in their lives as well as the big. And I can see that most of them break out of my self-imposed limitations in order to keep the updates coming. So, I’m pushing my own envelope. If you follow me on one or more social media, you’ll (hopefully) be seeing more updates. These updates may be boring, and may open me up to be judged by you, so be kind in your comments and replies.