Definitely! My old posts are cringe to an extreme. I think turning 30 helped with some perspective; I don't care [as much] anymore. "Yeah my partner is a manga

Definitely! My old posts are cringe to an extreme. I think turning 30 helped with some perspective; I don't care [as much] anymore. "Yeah my partner is a manga artist and drew me a mascot, so what?" In my early 20s that wouldn't have even computed. But I think the best thing I've found is to own it. Quote your past self, make lighthearted fun of it, and show how you've grown and what you've learned. Between that and not taking things too seriously, it also disarms a lot of trolls. It's also helped in unexpected ways. People at AsiaBSDCon remembered me as the guy who blogs about BSD. I got Allan and Benedict laughing on a BSD Now podcast at a bad joke I wrote in an otherwise-technical post. That felt really good! I empathise that it's trivial to discuss, but hard to internalise. CBT would say if you do it enough times, you feel better about it. That's probably the real answer.