Getting out of your own head 🤯

War and egotism

During American Civil War, a certain general had made its reputation, though not in the way he would’ve liked to.

Despite impressive organizational skills, being proven in battle, of regal baring and loved by his men, general George McClellan went down in history as probably one of the worst generals that ever served.

Why did general George McClellan turned out to be quite possibly the worst Union general even in a crowded field of imcompetent and self-absorbed leaders?

Well, McClellan belonged to a certain group of people which Plato referred as “those who feast on their own thoughts” more than 2,400 years ago.

To put it more simply:

Living in your own head.

People who’d rather live in passionate fiction than in actual reality.

And McClellan perfectly portrays this archetype.

He was in love of the vision he had of himself as the leader of a grand army.

He was a master at his craft, which was preparing an army for combat, but when it came to leading one into battle, troubles arose.

As we’ve seen on previous chapter, talking is always easier than doing and the path from thought to action is quite a complicated one.

“Sometimes using too much imagination may actually do more harm than help since we’re already experiencing what we desire, so we loose interest in doing it in real life.”

Ryan Holiday said it best, when we use too much of our imagination we deceive ourselves into thinking we’ve already done what we wanted, thus losing interest in it.

In the case of McClellan, he was so deep into his own thoughts that he couldn’t perceive reality even if it was starting right in front of him, and as it often happens, it did.

He became laughably convinced that:

• The enemy was growing large (it wasn’t)

• That there were constant threats and intrigues from political allies (they weren’t)

• That the only way to win a war was with the perfect plan and a single decisive campaign (he was wrong)

He became so conviced of this and many other false statements, that he ultimately froze and did nothing at all…sometimes even for several months at a time.

Feeding the ego

McClellan became used to congratulating himself on victories he hadn’t even won yet which ultimately caused defeats that could’ve been easily avoided.

When people who had served for McClellan described what he was like, they said the following:

Immersed in his own thoughts, McClellan was unable to see the reality of war and rather chose to brag about achievements that never happened.

We’ve wrongly associated ego with confidence and as a result, we’ve chosen egotistic leaders and expect them to perform in a way that’s not only unusual to them but unnatural.

By letting or imagination run amok, we run the risk of losing grasp of reality, just as McClellan did, and by doing so we´re leading ourselves down a path of failure and regret but above all, not living to our potential.

Our imagination can be a powerful tool if managed properly, but when let lose, it can be extremely dangerous.

If we do not train our perception and we allow ourselves to get lost in excitement, then how can we accurately interpret events and make conscious decisions?

The dangers of ambition

Anyone can easily fall pray of to the same narration McCellan fell, but above all, the most vulnerable are the ambitious.

We’ve been taught to tell stories in order for us to sell our work and talents and we’ve gone through unimaginable lengths to do so with the help of social media and as a result we’ve erased the line that separates fiction from reality.

We´ve told ourselves we´re the center of attention, the heroes of our own story, and we´ve inflated our importance so much that we´re unable to see clearly and unbiased.

As psychologist David Elking describes, we suffer from the same phenomenon which adolescence is marked by:

“The imaginary audience”

We’re haunted by the anxiety produced by missing one day at work by ruminating on what people are thinking about us, when in reality, they seldom do.

We live convinced that every one of our moves is watched with rapt attention by the rest of the world, when it couldn’t be further away from the truth.

Yet we continue to do so.

We play a movie in our heads all the time, thinking we’re the the main characters, we put some music on play the movie as if we were part of the latest Hollywood release.

And why?

Well because it feels f*ck!ng good doesn’t it?

At least so much more than the constant feelings of doubt and fear adult life provides.

And the worst part?

The more creative we are, the easier we lose the thread of reality.

AND THAT’S EGO RIGHT THERE.

If we don’t manage to control our imagination, if we don’t manage to live in the present, then we might lose control of reality and the more we do, the harder it is to get it back.

We must always remember there’s no one to perform for.

There’s only work to be done, lessons to be learned and people to care for.

That’s it.