Self Delusion

Most of us delude ourselves

It is incredibly easy to delude oneself into thinking you are a lot better than you are.  There is a widely quoted study that showed that nearly everyone regards themselves as an above average driver. In fact very few of us regard ourselves as being below average on anything.

This has just been brought home to me when I looked at the statistics for this blog.  I am currently averaging close to zero page views per day.  In fact I am not far off an average of zero views per month.  Last year I managed to get less than 10 page views in the whole of a month.  By any objective standards this blog is a complete and utter failure.

And yet I am able to convince myself that it does have some value.  I by and large succeed in writing correctly constructed sentences and my spelling is pretty reasonable too.  So although it isn't one of the top blogs I can still convince myself that it does have something going for it.

I think that deluding ourselves is a deeply ingrained habit.  It is worth remembering when you read any kind of guru that their grasp of reality is not likely to be all that great.  They may well be sincere and honest, but they are quite likely to be living in the clouds.



Reference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority#Driving_ability