“I” removed — A world reimagined
A person completely wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
— Harry Emerson Fosdick
After buying a new notebook about a month or so ago and writing down all my thoughts, hopes and dreams each morning ever since, it somehow dawned on me just how much the word “I” was used in every single entry.
Reviewing previous entries, the count was quite shocking.
Not one, two, three, four or five times per note… A whopping 16 times. To make matters worse, these entries contain on average, no more than 200 words, meaning every eleventh word is “I.”
Penny-drop moment right there.
Potentially life-changing.
Shamingly self-absorbed to say the least.
So, while most of my writings here on Medium are mainly dedicated to my experience with running, this one will most certainly be more philosophical in nature.
If you’re not South African, chances are you probably haven’t heard much about Former Judge of Shark Tank South Africa, Marnus Broodryk. Marnus is a champion in so many ways that it would be hard to pinpoint something specific that draws me to his energy.
But, just like Gerda Steyn is my running Idol, Marnus is my life idol.
Whether he realizes this or not, Marnus reshaped my thoughts on finances, what to care about in life, how and why we should prioritize mental as well as physical health and my self-proclaimed ideas on alcohol and mushrooms.
Not so long ago, Marnus shared a personal snippet of his life-story to his email subscribers — and as a devoted fan of everything he does even though his experiences don’t quite resonate with me — his writing style inspired me to write down a few thoughts of my own.
As soon as the penny-drop moment hit this morning, my first instincts rushed me to the bedroom, excitedly waiting for my husband to wake up so that this new revelation could be shared while simultaneously declaring to him and this crazy world we live in, that—
“We think way too much about ourselves these days!”
“I, I, I — is all we say lately.”
“I’m too tired. I’m too scared. I’m so angry that I… I don’t think that I…”
“I’m so sad that I have lost…”
Have you tried to remove the word “I” from anything you say or write lately?
While ranting about this life-changing revelation over my first cup of coffee for the day, my husband smiled and continued to tell me about how he remembers these concepts being taught back in school.
Language teachers would explain that when we write a paper on any given matter, we should remove ourselves from the topic, try to write in third-person and or be as little self-centered as possible.
It made me wonder; Were these notions too difficult to grasp as a growing adult? Being 13 years younger than my husband, were these teachings lost already in the generations that followed? Or, did the memories of these teachings just happen to escape me?
To try and conceptualize it all, it made most sense to me that — to fully understand and let these thoughts sink in, simply simplify, and remove the word “I” from your vocabulary.
Needless to say, this morning’s notebook entry was hardly an entry and a more accurate depiction would be something along the lines of a “try to rant, reword, scratch-out, rephrase scribble” that ended up being a piece about the word “I” as opposed to my usual and natural negative consensus of how ‘hard life is.’
Is it really? Or is it our egos that make it hard?
If you read this entire article, you may or may not have noticed that while the topic was mainly centered around me and my experiences, the word “I” wasn’t used once apart from referencing it.
Let that sink in for a bit.
Then, consider yourself encouraged to try do the same the next time you feel like putting life’s challenges from pen to paper. You’ll be surprised how much your word count and vocabulary increases and just how much you are forced to sit down and think.
…Not just about you, but about everything that life represents.
The changing thinking behavior will be outstanding.
Lavish.
Outlandish.
Non-egotistical.
Words that flow.
New ideas and concepts that flourish.
Guaranteed, how you phrase and view things will drastically change and soon you’ll realize, that most things you wrote down or said, were likely not about you and more positive than you could’ve imagined.
“I” removed. A world Reimagined.