Interesting piece of wisdom on how to think more wisely and make good decisions. It makes sense to put a bit of distance between ourself and the decision we are trying to make. Hearing it out loud from the perspective of a third party could potentially reveal blind-spots that we would otherwise miss. I thought to test this with something I have been struggling with recently and do not feel confident that I am making a good choice so my defense has been to preserve status quo.
Defining the problem statement and my thinking around the solution did a couple of useful things. It became very obvious that there was no way to solve it without increasing risk tolerance. If that was not an option, then the proposed solution was plainly wrong. I was actually able to step away from the situation and see all parameters with more clarity and without any emotional attachment. It was as if I was trying someone else to think things through.
..illeism is the practice of talking about oneself in the third person, rather than the first person. The rhetorical device is often used by politicians to try to give their words an air of objectivity. In his account of the Gallic War, for example, the emperor Julius Caesar wrote “Caesar avenged the public” rather than “I avenged the public”. The small linguistic switch seems intended to make the statement feel a little more like historical fact, recorded by an impartial observer
To the modern ear, illeism can sound a little silly or pompous – and we may even deride famous people who choose to talk in this way. Yet recent psychological research suggests that illeism can bring some real cognitive benefits. If we are trying to make a difficult decision, speaking about ourselves in the third person can help to neutralise the emotions that could lead our thinking astray, allowing us to find a wiser solution to our problem.
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