It’s one year since Mark’s boss told him to destroy his weblog and choose between his private and public work. He’s never looked back. If you never read what he wrote that day, go back and look. It’s the definition of principle and grace under the worst kind of pressure.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Cambridge writing this. (Thank God for enlightened hotels with broadband.) I just left one of two company presentations that I’m involved with today at MIT Sloan. Got a chance to see a very high energy evangelist from my company talk about where we’re going in the mobility market. Talked to a few grad students about my experiences so far. Even though I’m operating on about three hours of sleep, it felt really good. In fact, I felt “at home” in a way that I have rarely felt since I started this job in July.

I wonder about that. More than most other people I know (or maybe they do a better job of hiding it) I really go into a shell when I go into a new experience. I could be on top of the world one day, as I sometimes felt at Sloan (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding) and go into a new situation the next and totally withdraw. There have been times over the last month where I’ve just shaken with frustration over my inability to engage, to act, to do anything. It’s like a crippling fear of leaving my office.

Today all that was gone. I think there’s something about just being in the old environment where I was on top that makes it easier even to admit to myself what I just wrote. I wonder if this is something everyone goes through. I know I felt it to an extent when I started at Sloan until I got my feet under me.