We play in a digital world.

Proof of that exists right now. You’re reading something that never required ink to graciously meet paper.

It’s an opportunity. Not just to influence more people with ease. It’s an opportunity to look inward as well.

My virtual time stamp of thought and mindset. Floating in an imaginary “cloud” of information. Cloud-stamping… if you will.

I visited that cloud a few weeks ago as I encouraged old friends to subscribe to this blog. Turns out Facebook message history goes back to my college days (eek). At times I was slightly scared to see what former Eric (Worral) had to say.

Here’s a real Facebook message I sent to a girl in my college class in 2007:

“I would ask you if you wanted to grab something to eat sometime but I noticed you have a bf and thats a serious debbie downer…”

And here’s my reaction to reading the message sent by my former self:

The rhythmic head twists followed by face-palms happen more than I’d like to admit. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Gently shaking your head at your former self is probably a sign of progress. 

I’ll never be perfect and old photos, blog posts, videos, tweets, messages, texts, emails, and fantasy football smack boards are there to remind me of that.

It’s just the world we live in.

We should probably think about that before we hit submit and add to our cloud-stamped legacy. However, the flip of the currency is that we shouldn’t be afraid to share our ideas and thoughts because of cloud-stamp-anxiety. What I am capable of today is not going to be as polished as what I am capable of doing tomorrow. I can continue to wait till I feel adequate enough to share with my world, or I can choose to measure progress.

I look forward to reading this post in the future. I am sure I will shake my head at how inexperienced the author was.

That’s the hope anyways. That’s cloud-stamping-progress.