The lead editorial in this week's Sunday Review section of the New York Times really struck a chord with me. Anyone who knows me knows I have a hard time putting myself out there. My brief stint in real estate fell flat in part due to my inability to shamelessly advertise without a certain amount of cheesy guilt. There is an art, however, to self promotion. Mastering it often means success. But are we a society of too many successes? Are we taking the entrepreneurial spirit out to the proverbial pasture, so to speak? On Sunday, November 13, 2011, William Deresiewicz weighed in on what he calls "Generation Sell -- The new zeitgeist: we're all peddling ourselves and managing our own brands." 

This coming on the heels of my very own year long attempt to cultivate a brand and somehow package it in an (in)effective (dare I say successful) manner. 

Part of the challenge for me has been this crazy idea that I have to do it all myself. Without any particular training or skill, say in the areas of web design or graphics, or even marketing or public relations to capitalize on what it is I'm trying to accomplish (do I even know what that is?) But I am attempting it anyway. A true novice. All while smugly comforting my creative psyche that insists on originality in every sense of the word. 

Why the extra effort? When it's clear I could just farm it all out. Pay someone to do it for me. Everything -- and everyone, it seems -- is for sale. Are you buying? Am I original? Or just one of many pushing the product of ME? With, or without, shame.

One young reader offered his rebuttal in a Letter to the Editor called  "Generation Do"  -- I like his spirit. In my opinion, both of them are right. And I fall, comfortably, somewhere between "Doing" and "Selling."