The Georgetown coach had it right
John Thomas was the former basketball coach for Georgetown University.
He believed that everyone had three different levels of privacy in their life. All of them were kept separate from one another.
Let’s break down the different levels and talk about why this separation is important.
The Levels
Public
Your public life is exactly how it sounds. It’s the side of you that pretty much everyone knows or could find out easily.
This could be what you do for work, that you just bought a new car or anything else that you wouldn’t mind people knowing.
Making things a part of your public life has never been easier.
With the rise of social media and the internet, everyone has a platform to tell the world anything they want.
You can tweet or make a post about pretty much anything.
If you log into TikTok, you will see many teenagers sharing too much with the world. It’s pretty disgusting.
Alas, this is the new world. People love to share everything they possibly can with complete strangers. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but people share so much that it becomes a negative.
Perosnal
Your personal life is only known by close friends or family.
Some things that are in your personal life would be a family member dying. Some people would choose not to share this with the world. Others would.
That’s something you need to know.
These examples are not what you should or shouldn’t share with the world. Everyone shares things about themselves at the level they see fit.
While some people may make a post regarding the death of a loved one and how much they miss them, others may choose not to share.
There isn’t a right or wrong. It’s up to you to decide how much you share in your life.
Maybe you find out that you have a disease. You might share this with family members but may not feel comfortable telling your coworkers.
Your personal life is just that, personal.
the line has been blending more recently between personal and public life. It seems more people are comfortable with sharing personal things about themselves.
I am not one of these people. My public life is only a small snippet of who I am as a person and what is going on in my life.
Private
Privacy is something we all need.
Again, some cherish it more than others.
Private life is similar to sacred ground.
No one should enter it. It should not even seem real to people. It needs to be treated with respect at all times.
Your private life is what you choose to tell no one. Not even your best friend since grade school or your favorite sister.
The only person that knows your private life exists is you.
I won’t give examples of what this could be.
You decide what to place in this category. You decide what you wish to keep to yourself and not share with anyone else.
Depending on who you are, this could be your smallest or largest privacy level.
Why This Matters
These levels of privacy matter because they establish boundaries.
It is healthy to keep some things personal and share other aspects of your life. It is healthy to have a good balance of each level.
Privacy is about human dignity. All people are entitled to privacy in their lives. It’s one of the most sacred things a person has.
Even the most outspoken person has secrets they don’t wish to share.
The loudest person in the room who never shuts up has areas of their life they don’t want anyone else to know.
This boundary needs to be respected at all times.
It’s why when someone shares me a TikTok (since I don’t have an account) and it involves some teenager talking about losing their virginity, it creeps me out.
Why would you want to tell the whole world all about the first time you had sex? Or why would you want to talk about your history of STDs on Instagram Live?
It makes no sense.
We need to bring back privacy in our lives. Let’s make it cool to not have social media. You don’t need to share what you are going through every second of the day.
Bring back privacy in 2022.
Keep most of your life at the personal level.
