Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26388545-20180124223032/@comment-26388545-20180126171145

I like being registered. It's good for others AND it acts as a check & balance for me.

Others: It's easy for people to get to know me over time. You can figure out if I am helpful or not. Do I rag on people a lot? Does my info check out or do I just type random guesses and call it facts? All this is important.

Me: I care about my reputation. Before I hit reply, I need to stop and think if this is how I want to represent myself. Sometimes I hit reply before fully thinking... but more often than not, I think things through.

Part of this is due to my professional life. I've been taught to weigh my decisions carefully. I am to ask myself, "how would me friends and family feel if they knew about my actions?" That affects things. Some day the person behind ME7 may be public knowledge. I need to be sure that I am happy with how I have represented myself.

I think it's about personal integrity. Some people think they can be a jerk online and a nice person in real life... REALLY??? I'd say you are deceiving yourself if you believe that. Both of those personas are in your one body. One persona will eventually dominate. I suggest that the monster will eventually win.

Once introduced, negative agents eat away the good. Rust eats metal & infections eat us (gangrene). Once introduced they are ravenous. The only way to stop them is to take extreme actions and suffer a loss (cut off body parts). Better to be proactive and not allow them a place to grow. I Believe the same is true in our personalities. Allow a ravenous persona to take root and it will eat you up.

Some people are monsters in real life. Well then all I can do is chose my battles carefully.