“I write to discover what I know.”
—Flannery O’Connor

I remember when I first started investing in my personal growth and development aggressively.

I started by reading Tim Ferriss’s book and discussing its principles with friends. I was living in Atlanta at the time, desperately wanting to live a life of freedom and purpose (devoid of IBM Thinkpads and expense reports).

I recall very vividly how impassioned my speech would get when talking about freedom and success with friends, and how I “heard” myself producing paragraph after paragraph of eloquent insights into the nature of success.

Sure, they were my thoughts, but there was a certain level of insight into my subconscious that wasn’t available to me at other times.

I noticed the same phenomenon when I started journaling regularly. When I put pen to paper and let the words flow, I would frequently reflect on my own writing with wonder, as if the words had been penned by a more insightful and self-aware version of myself.

The best explanation I have for this is…the brain is weird.

And while it would be awesome not to have to “hack” self-reflection, it’s not worth spending even a moment wishing things were different. We can simply pretend we’re advising someone else on the steps required to achieve success if we want to become better self-counselors.