43 Folders

43 Folders feed subscription icon - Shiny! Drowning in email? Try Inbox Zero to learn sane tips for dealing with high-volume email. And don’t miss the free Inbox Zero video. »

”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Hack Yourself: Exorcise the Demon

Hack Yourself” is a short essay packed with inspiring thoughts on change, self-image, and the ranges of possibility that you permit yourself. Too many great bits to quote ‘em all, but I found this part especially illuminating:

Find the demon.

Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s the little voice in the back of your head that’s always whispering, “You can’t.” You know the demon. You may think you hate the demon, but you don’t. You love it. You let it own you. You do everything it says. Everytime there’s something you want, you consult the demon first, to see if it will say, “You can’t have that.”

What you don’t realize is that your demon doesn’t know anything. It’s an idiot. It’s nothing but a parrot, repeating back to you anything negative that it’s ever heard, anything that makes you hurt, makes you squirm. If a teacher once told you “You’ll never accomplish anything,” it was listening; it hoards words like that and repeats them back to you to watch you jump. It doesn’t know what it’s saying. It doesn’t care.

Exorcise yourself.


Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Jonathan Aquino's picture

The Demon sounds like the...

The Demon sounds like the Yeahbuts in Nicholas Lore’s excellent career-exploration book “The Pathfinder”.

Ambar's picture

Sounds to me like _Taming...

Sounds to me like Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson (I have the 1983 edition, haven’t seen the revised one), which offers simple practical methods for performing the exorcism.

wolfgang's picture

Excellent read. This also reminds...

Excellent read. This also reminds me of the “Radio Station KFKD” chapter in Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird”. Julia Cameron calls it the “censor” in “The Artist’s Way”. Yay namedropping ;)

Eiwe Lingefors's picture

It would seem the author...

It would seem the author has removed the essay. Did anyone mirror it by any chance?

Matt's picture

It's cached on Google. Just...

It’s cached on Google. Just search for:

“hack yourself” bloodletters

and it’ll be near the top.

Kim's picture

In the last really kinda...

In the last really kinda deep meditation/yoga class I took, the instructor described the ego as doing this among other awful things. It seemed strange that my own ego would be so negative — I like demon, censor, words like that. Well. I don’t like them. I like to use them…you know what I mean.

david's picture

And Hack Yourself makes me...

And Hack Yourself makes me think of Brenda Ueland, author of If You Want to Write. She talks about how your friends and family can often be the first to tell you that you’re not capable, can’t be who you want to be.

RunningMan 'blog's picture

Going Public I've just written about...

Going Public

I’ve just written about my start here on RunningMan at my regular weblog Fooworks.

I describe this as the 43 Folders blog for fitness rather than orgainzation.

Some Kinda Possible's picture

Hack Yourself My path to Hack...

Hack Yourself

My path to Hack Yourself led through several links. It started with the link on my Blog Roll to All the Pages are My Days. On his Blog Roll is the site for Ben Hammersley. He has a link for…

Czarism.com's picture

Hack Yourself, you can be...

Hack Yourself, you can be happy

Michael Montoure’s web log, Bloodletters has published a reasonably ‘how-to’ on hacking yourself. Hack yourself — you can be happy. You can live the life you want to live. You can become the person you want to be; is an aggr

About Merlin Mann

Merlin Mann's picture

Bio

Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who started the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today. Also? He looks like this, answers questions, and has something like a life.

The best thing Merlin’s ever written is a short essay called, “Better.”

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

An Oblique Strategy:
Distorting time


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Inbox Zero

The original 43 Folders series looking at the skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox — and then keep it that way. Don’t miss the free video of Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation.

Making Time

3-part series on attention management for artists and makers. Read Bad Correspondence, The Job You Think You Have, and One Clear Line.