Everyday Canvas

Self-deception and Different Siblings

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: "What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it."
Miguel de Unamuno
What are your thoughts on self-deception? What do you think it is, and do you or others do it often?

-----

Self-deception is when we lie to ourselves even when the evidence is to the contrary. It is a deep and complicated psychological force, and it is, in certain cases, useful, but mostly, it may prove to be harmful.

I think we do it quite often, even those of us who purport to being absolutely sane and well-adjusted. From childhood on, we either have or are later given by our environment a positivity bias, which means we tend to look at ourselves from a more positive stance. Almost any lie we tell ourselves is based on this stance. For example: “My partner only has eyes for me.” “I am the best student in the whole class.” “My son/daughter wouldn’t hit another kid. He/she wasn’t brought up that way.” Etc.

Surely, the opposite of this, however rare, can be true. When children are made to see themselves in a negative way, this too ends up in later self-deception. “I’ll never pass this test.” “I’ll never succeed.” “Any partner will reject me. What is there to like about me?” “I may lose my job any day, now.” Etc.

For some people, self-deception is a habit out of control, which leads to more lies to cover up the earlier ones. “Of course, my partner loved and liked me. Other people tricked him into leaving me.” “My daughter was only there with the other kids, not knowing they were going to vandalize the store. It is the other kids, not her.”

The way I see it, a little self-deception isn’t unhealthy since it lets us live through an unpleasant moment or two, but a lot of it is extremely unhealthy and can cause dire results. The fact is, we all deceive ourselves in tiny ways occasionally, and that may even be helpful. For example, I know someone who doesn’t like her everyday photos even if they are normal but not flattering. On the other hand, her flattering photos do make it to Facebook. If by mistake, she’s in one of my photos that is normal but not flattering, I hide that photo from her, so she doesn't get upset.

Having said that, very recently, during my husband’s serious illness, I made myself believe that he’d recover and come home, even though the medical people as well as others tried to tell me it wasn’t so. He passed away and never came home again. But I think my self-deception made me live through those horrible months. Somehow, I probably sensed all along that it was the end for him but couldn’t face it emotionally. In a way, when I look back, I do appreciate my hopeful stance then. It made me live through it.

For: "Space Blog Group" 

From Lilli 🧿 ☕ ’s blog "Yes, we are family, but..." /
"Who really understands why two people from the same home turn out so differently?"
What do you think makes people from the same family turn out so differently?

-----

You’re telling me! I have two sons who are the exact opposites of each other, to the degree that one is an extreme liberal and the other is a staunch conservative. One is a loner, the other’s a people-person. One is a vegetarian, the other is a lover of all food. It is the same way with every other thing, as well.

I think it is in the genes affected by later influences, but my two kids were opposites from birth on. So, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know.

Only as a far-fetched speculation, I might say that maybe they each wanted to be special in their own ways; however, I sense there is a lot more to it than that because they can't help who they are, themselves.