Self-Deception

There are people who tell lies to themselves. Nope, they are not unconscious when doing it, neither they are masochistic or in the temporary state of insanity or out-of-their-mindity. They voluntarily, sometimes even happily and delightfully deceive their beloved selves with another type of lies which his called self-deception.

A woman who spares herself sugar in the coffee or oil in the salad, but who afterwards eats it all up with a few bars of chocolate... A man who comes back home from a long business trip and intentionally overlooks his wife's flirty behaviour with his best friend – she's always been playful but faithful, right?..

A big boss who feels the crash but hopes for the better before his company goes totally bankrupt... A celebrity who desperately hopes and fitfully tries to bring back her long-gone overspoiled by female attention ex-boyfriend... A plump girl who continues soothing her sweet tooth just before going to the gym (oh well, at least she goes there – we can already speak of a certain well-balanced self-deception).

All these are vivid illustrations of self-deception. The list can be continued endlessly. Reasons why people deceive others are more or less understandable, but why the heck are we all into occasional self-deception?

The answer is simple – we littlewhitelie to ourselves in order to make excuses that would soothe our wrong actions or thoughts. We are well aware of things that we do wrong, however, we often cover them up skillfully with excusing ourselves to ourselves – just to look smart in our own eyes. This tactics implies our weaknesses which are not too harmful – if we don't get carried away with practising them too often, that is.