This topic has been coming up a lot lately as the use of twitter and, especially, facebook is becoming more and more ubiquitous. A lot of people are becoming concerned about how their constant updating will be perceived and whether or not they will look back and regret some of their past contributions to the public sphere.

I recently watched Primer, a movie about a group of young entrepreneurs who mistakenly invent a machine that allows you to travel back in time. Once they realized what they invented, they tried to determine how to monitize or sell this important technology. They soon realize that it would be too difficult to sell and potentially dangerous for other people to know about. So they decide to use the technology to game the stock market & become rich (in a nutshell, of course there’s more to the story).

What does this have to do with your internet persona & over sharing? Well, a lot of the decisions we make & ideas we harbor are a product of our life experience and our assumptions of our realities based on our understanding of the world. This is inherently a dynamic process and we gain new perspectives of how the world works everyday. So it goes without saying that many of our approaches to life can fundamentally change as new information and understanding come to light, changing our assumptions and ultimately our ideas and philosophies. In the case of Primer, their understand of the world changed in such a drastic way that they were forced to re-evaluate their ethics & morals. Do you tell your angel investor? Do you pitch the technology to VC’s or DARPA? Or do you “cheat” the market, become rich and buy a private island in the Caribbean (the whole reason you got into entrepreneurship in the first place)? Does the end justify the means?

This an exciting process that is really interesting to watch unfold. Why should we feel regret? What new experience has reshaped your reality today?