Express or impress?

Many of us like to express ourselves … there are many ways to do it or you can also say there are many forms of expressions.

 A lot of people express themselves via writing or speech ... some use body language, others use photos or drawings and there are those who use music or art or painting. For example … Vincent Van Gogh expressed himself mainly with his paintings and Chopin wrote his stories exclusively on piano.

Like me, some people sing and use songs to tell their stories or their experiences.

Then there are others who express themselves silently … maybe they are just telling people they are minding their own business. Maybe they are those who don’t like to tell their stories.

Expressing is good … in whatever form. It is a very common communication process. With very large and far reach of the social media platforms and other communication tools … we all can now express ourselves conveniently by posting a photo or sharing a video or writing an article or sharing a link.

Even with a simple “👍”, you can express your thoughts or feeling on certain things. And with many different emoticons … one can choose to express the degree or level of their likes or dislikes.

But then there is a difference … many of us can identify that difference. What difference?

The difference between expressing and impressing.

There are those who like to impress with the postings or comments they made … we can all see whether a person is trying to share or that person is really trying to show.

I give you an example … many years ago a friend of mine successfully made it to one of the popular base camps in the Himalayas … she posted some pictures to share her experience and her joy of completing the challenge. 

Of course many of us posted comments on her photos … all the comments were congratulatory messages … except one. I can remember (though not every word) this particular message and it went something like this … “Hey, on your left, about 5 meters away there should be a big white boulder. Is it still there? I was at the same spot where you are standing two years ago”.

See what I mean?

Having said this … let me cover my backside a bit (or not I am sure to receive some very nasty emails and comments) … so, let me use my usual “cover backside” line … THERE IS NOTHING WRONG if people want to impress or want to show ya. Maybe that is their way of telling people that they have better stories to tell or maybe they have something better to show. That is absolutely OK.

Now, whether to express or to impress … it is entirely up to you. All I can say is … if you want to impress, you want to influence how people think of you. Well, it is a lot easier to express because you don’t have to worry about how people think of you.