Being Type A/Type B on Social Media
How identifying your “Type” would help you chart through life and Medium better!
Few years ago, when someone suggested that the best way to quit smoking was running — I started running. Then to keep myself motivated I started participating in running events — 10K / 21K races.
I was always ecstatic about participating in running events. Not because I used to win awards or there were people shouting my name at the finish line. My finish time was three and half hour usually (21K), i was always in the lower percentile of all the finishers , each of these races used to cost me an average of INR 2000 and worse — at the end of three and a half hour I had to stand in queue to collect my participant medal.
Each of the event was an orgasm — the final culmination of months of foreplay. I slept on time so that I could wake up early morning to run, kept a check on my diet, watched a lot of sports related movies to keep the tempo high, researched YouTube videos for running tips, read about marathons (I discovered What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami during this time), bought a lot of shoes on amazon as the soles used to disappear fast…the whole setting was a carnival.
Of course the best thing was that I could leave smoking.
Then I got busy in my tutoring business and lost touch with running.
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Now I have two YouTube channels running, for about a year now. My son helps take care of the post production part. We have about 300 uploads on both ; the subscriber base is a piddling number but we upload with a gusto. YouTube hasn’t made us celebrities but it has taught us things about video editing, thumbnail making, SEO , … terms that we never knew before.
For me the best outcome is (a) I am able to share what I know with anyone who may find it useful — part of legacy project (b) My kid has learnt to interact with social medium as a “ producer” and not just a “consumer”.
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So what’s the point here ?
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The point is — when I see headlines like above on Medium , my laptop groans.
Even if I don’t get any dollar from Medium or I don’t get gazillions of followers on it — I plan to keep writing here as writing clears my mind like running did. It helps me structure my thoughts. I see a subtle difference in my communication when I am teaching a class. And above all, I don’t jump from one app to another or binge watch on Amazon Prime / Netflix or keep scrolling on news feeds.
(Yes, I can afford this stance because I do not write on Medium or anywhere else to earn a livelihood)
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Classify me as a Type B personality; I see tangible and intangible features of an act. The tangible benefits are obvious — the intangible benefits lurk in the corners . As a cost/benefit analysis exercise — I see YouTube / Medium from an overall perspective rather than the dollar earning or subscribers only.
So I plan to keep writing on Medium because the intangibles outweigh the tangibles. Every day.
And if you are Type A — hope you get your million dollars and views soon :)
