#personal-development #serious-thoughts I think that a lot of people sort of struggle with making up an identity for themselves or expressing themselves in a way that makes them happy. Humans desire self-expression for several interconnected reasons: - Self-expression serves as a way to process our own inner experiences. When we create, we're often making sense of our own emotions, ideas, and experiences. It's in a sense making a bridge between our internal world and our external one. - There is also a deeply social component to it. Humans are inherently social creatures, and self-expression helps us connect with others who share similar experiences or appreciate our unique perspective. When someone resonates with our creative work or understands our point of view, it creates a powerful sense of validation and belonging. - Maybe human development and survival but I don't really care about that for the purpose of this narrative. The interesting thing about expression is that typically as people grow older they are discouraged from self-expression, and it often becomes more constrained with age for many reasons: - Societal pressure to "be practical" with expectation to focus on career and responsibilities rather than creative pursuits - Professional environments inadvertently suppressing this by rewarding and encouraging the concept of "professional behavior" - Narratives about aging suggesting that some forms of self-expression are age-inappropriate - Economic pressure -- think about the time where you feel like you don't have the time or means to pursue some hobby you are passionate in. The irony of it is that with age comes deeper self-knowledge and life experience that could fuel even richer forms of self-expression. Unfortunately as we grow older the number of barriers increase substantially. Recently, I joined a social club and one of the asks was an introductory slide of who you are as a person or what kinds of things you care about. I was on a call with my friend J when he just took a glance at the slide and instantly knew that it all felt like me. While I've occasionally felt this pressure from time to time as I've grown up, I've always at least maintained a tendency to be extra and authentically myself. I'm obsessed with self-expression in any way possible. Fashion, customization, performance. I own a pink car. I build custom keyboards because regular ones aren't cute enough for me. I mod my tech and decorations pink. My tendency to kind of do this accidentally made me really good at branding myself, as my friends from college would tell me. And J recognized it instantaneously, remarking on the colors, fonts, and shapes that just screamed "me". I didn't really consciously try to convey my personality -- my motivation was more like I wanted to create a cute slide I wanted. I spent another 2 hours fiddling with it until I was satisfied. J thinks I'm ridiculous usually, but we like how authentic we are to each other. As I grew up, while it became difficult to wrestle between showing my authentic self and feeling potential embarrassment over the vulnerability of who I really am, I came to realize a lot of things about the professional world and about interpersonal relationships that led me to conclude: OK, nobody cares. And also people *really* enjoy when they get to see something totally out of the ordinary and begin to associate you with positive traits like playfulness and creativity. Of course I work in tech, which is way more accepting of these values than other industries, but honestly I feel that there is hardly any pushback because people associate those traits anyway. My manager's Slack alias is @batman. There are no rules in the world and you don't have to conform to what you think an adult should be. Even in professional interviews this attitude is beneficial because it gives more of a personal cultural connection anyway. Overall though, this attitude helped me a lot in cultivating an identity as I grew older -- each small choice to express yourself authentically builds confidence for bigger ones. I appreciate myself in that I've maintained this for so long in my life. And if you are wondering how to start with self-expression and adjacently your personal brand, just start with your favorite color. Mine is pink, by the way. ![[Screenshot 2025-02-19 at 2.37.56 PM.png]] <div align="center">a slide i did for an intro for an organization i recently joined :)</div>