"I prefer the new me a million times more over than the old one"
About this Quote
Self-reinvention is usually sold as a glossy montage: new habits, new wardrobe, new mindset. Benjamin Cohen’s line cuts through that with a journalist’s blunt comparative: not “I’ve changed,” but “I prefer.” That verb matters. It frames personal transformation as an editorial decision, a conscious re-ranking of evidence after living through both versions. The “old one” isn’t demonized with melodrama; it’s simply outperformed.
“A million times more” is hyperbole with a purpose. Journalists are trained to distrust exaggeration, so when one leans into it, you hear the emotional surcharge: the old self wasn’t just less effective, it was costly. The phrase reads like relief made emphatic, the kind that comes after quitting a habit, leaving a job, surviving an illness, or stepping out of a long season of self-erasure. It’s a victory lap, but not a smug one; it’s insisting on the magnitude because the speaker expects skepticism, maybe even from himself.
The subtext is also defensive in a modern way. Public growth is routinely interrogated: Is it authentic? Is it performative? Cohen answers by moving the metric inward. Preference is hard to litigate. You can argue facts; you can’t cross-examine felt experience.
Contextually, it fits a culture addicted to “before/after” narratives and personal branding, yet it resists the tidy redemption arc. There’s no promise of permanence, no manifesto. Just a hard-won bias toward the present self, stated with the confidence of someone who’s done the reporting and is done negotiating.
“A million times more” is hyperbole with a purpose. Journalists are trained to distrust exaggeration, so when one leans into it, you hear the emotional surcharge: the old self wasn’t just less effective, it was costly. The phrase reads like relief made emphatic, the kind that comes after quitting a habit, leaving a job, surviving an illness, or stepping out of a long season of self-erasure. It’s a victory lap, but not a smug one; it’s insisting on the magnitude because the speaker expects skepticism, maybe even from himself.
The subtext is also defensive in a modern way. Public growth is routinely interrogated: Is it authentic? Is it performative? Cohen answers by moving the metric inward. Preference is hard to litigate. You can argue facts; you can’t cross-examine felt experience.
Contextually, it fits a culture addicted to “before/after” narratives and personal branding, yet it resists the tidy redemption arc. There’s no promise of permanence, no manifesto. Just a hard-won bias toward the present self, stated with the confidence of someone who’s done the reporting and is done negotiating.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reinvention |
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