Before I started writing daily, I was a much more private person. In many ways, I still am. There are things that are off limits. I would never consider writing about them or sharing them on a public platform. 

When I saw Brene Brown's TED talk about vulnerability, I wondered to what extend being private was shielding me from being vulnerable. I wanted to understand the art of being vulnerable VS maintaining a certain level of privacy. That may be why I struggle with being active on social media. I see so many people sharing a lot on FB and Twitter. And here I am feeling addicted to getting comments and claps for my writing. These things are very addictive. I worry about the withdrawal effect of missing these online dopamine feeds. 

For the Medium challenge, I shared a very personal story. When I was trying to decide what to write about, I had a lot of material to pick from. But the masterclass I took strongly advised me to pick a topic that would make me uniquely qualified to talk about. When trying to identify that topic and my ideas to write about, I ended up with the piece I selected. A part of me wondered if it was too personal to share. But it was a story I wanted to tell. I felt I had to tell. And I knew I would get over the privacy concerns. I did manage to keep a lot of details about myself from the piece. Though it may have added some context. I decided to focus on just one issue. 

When I look at other people's writing, I see a lot of shocking stories. I find it difficult to even look at images where people have written about their dead babies. That is just incredibly sad. I feel very bad for the judges that have to read these types of content. And even worse, have to objectively decide if the writing should win or not. I read one piece where the title was - 'is my child dead?' It made me click and read the piece. The authors child wasn't dead. The child and grandchild just decided to cut her off and live elsewhere. I was saddened by the click bait nature of the title. I would have been very disappointed if I was the child. 

I don't want to lose my perspective about privacy and where to draw the line. It is a savage world out there. And getting likes, upvotes and claps are getting blindingly necessary.