The third man syndrome
Practical steps to build resilience in despair
Ernest Shackleton ,an explorer , was on an expedition with his team when their ship got stuck in ice .Alongside two crew members, he had to trek over glaciers and icy mountain ranges to get help for the crew members they left behind .The dehydrated and ill-equipped crew reached the station 36 hours later. However, what makes this expedition captivating is not the endurance , but a recounting of the experience in Ernest’s memoirs where he says ,"It seemed to me often that we were four not three."
Joe Simpson in his 1988 book Touching the Void, describes "a voice" which encouraged him and directed him as he crawled back to base camp after suffering a horrible leg injury falling off a cliff and into a crevasse and many more experiences like this are documented .This is what is referred to as Third man syndrome.
In today’s newsletter we dive into what it means to be your own third man.
The third man syndrome is theorized to be a coping mechanism for someone under extreme physical and psychological duress. It manifests as a mysterious or sometimes known person that guides you out of these situations safely. Why? Because there’s nothing more helpful to a person undergoing hardship than the feeling that there’s someone there, helping them.
You have the determination to succeed ,however, most doors appear to be closed to you. No matter how hard you try, the best you get is a ‘better luck next time.’ With finite energy and morale, finding yourself in the pit of despair is easy. Where you lack the energy to drag yourself from bed , the drive to pursue things runs out and you see no possible avenue out of it.
Despair seems to be an inescapable feeling. At one point we’ve all felt like laying down arms , tired from the mental and physical battles we’ve been fighting in what seems to be an endless cycle. I speak ,not as one who is free of the shackles, but as one who is navigating a path out of this maze.
The third man syndrome is a symbol of hope during struggle. Evidence that sometimes when you think you can’t ,it’s because you THINK you have reached your limits. However ,your brain KNOWS something different. It knows you have the capability to make it out, and to get through the thick cloud of despair ,it literally manifests someone to drag you out when in real sense, it was all you.
Lesson: You can, you just don’t know it yet.
Hence whenever you feel stuck, at work, in school, on that project, know that only you have the power to save yourself. Be your own ‘third man’ . Here’s some steps I followed to help me out :
An audit - Do an audit of everything you’re involved in. Simplify it for your own sake. Is it necessary to do this? Does it give me energy? Is it urgent? What’s the end goal? Eliminate activities that don’t fit the bill.
Commoditize and ration your time - If you’re walking down the street and you see someone throwing legit cash, you’d think, ‘this person is insane’ or ‘he must have money to waste’. I used to waste time on endless scrolling whenever I did not feel like working. I reasoned, my most valuable resource is time ,so either I must be insane to waste it or I must have a lot of it. Value your time, it is a finite resource.
Rest and reset - Part of the reason I found myself in that pit was that I constantly kept finding ways to keep myself busy even on things that were working to my detriment. I began taking some time to do nothing, just allowing my mind to travel. This is where ideas like this newsletter and its contents come from. Things I would have never considered. At first I would feel guilty not doing anything, but the alternative was a burn out that cost me much more in productivity.
Slow and steady - I used to feel left behind by my peers in the entrepreneurial world who had raised funding, gotten traction, done a launch party while I had been grinding away for two years with no huge milestones to show. On reflection, getting left behind is only possible if you are all on the same path. However this is not feasible because we are unique individuals meant to walk unique paths that no one else can except us. Knowing this , I pulled the lever on imaginary competitions and decided to approach everything rationally with a mentality of how it will fit into my unique path. Slow down and evaluate why you are doing what you’re doing and how it fits into your unique path.
Implement this and tell me how you feel afterwards. And if you’ve read this far, know that you’re part of the 1% that keeps me out of the pit . Reply to this email with your questions ,comments or to share what you’re working on and I’ll make sure to reply personally. Share it with friends and family if you find it useful to help me reach a wider audience.
Nice piece