Four Words

On Tuesday nights, a friend of mine hosts a twitter chat which consists of five random questions thrown on to his followers. Anyone and everyone can join and the questions are usually completely random. Sometimes, the questions are light-hearted and fun, like "What's your favorite under-the-radar Netflix show? Other times, they are a little more thought-provoking like "Give four words that you'd like to have describe you by a good friend at your eulogy."

What I like about these questions is I never know what's coming. What I don't like about these questions is I never know what's coming. In a public forum like Twitter, I'm constantly hyper-aware of how I'm portraying myself. I don't tweet a lot because I often question whether what I have to say makes any impact or adds any value in that forum. Yet I generally try to answer all five of the weekly questions. In some cases I don't because I don't have an answer. (I'm horrible at movie questions because I don't know actors or movies very well.) But some, like the four words at my eulogy question, are harder than others. 

I went through a ton of words. I had a moment of, holy crap, who am I trying to be? I thought, oh man, I'd love to describe myself as compassionate, but I don't think others see me that way. I wanted to say smart, decided clever might be more descriptive, but then evolved to intelligent. In the end I didn't use any of those because I thought that was too pompous of me. It is easier to say I'm loyal or honest because I know that about myself, it is harder to say smart because that's someone else's judgement about me compared to others. 

Then, reading through other responses, I realize there were words out there that other people used that I really wish I would have used. Open minded, dependable, generous, thoughtful were just a few. Why didn't I think of those? 

I pondered writing down what words I wanted to describe me to other people and looking at them each day to see if I was living up to their intention. It seems like a good goal to strive for, this accountability to the idea of what friends want, or at least what I want in my friends and all of it came from a twitter chat. A reminder that as insignificant as some people deem social media to be, it sometimes at least makes an impact.