How and why do people deceive themselves?

A major obstacle to knowing ourselves, so to a better life, is our eternal tendency to deceive ourselves. We lie for a very understandable reason: because we want to avoid pain.

There are four things that we especially lie about: 1) the things we want to change in our lives; 2) the things that we may be able to do spoil our image of ourselves; 3) the things we desperately love, but we cannot have; and 4) the things we are grieving about, but we cannot express.

Some self - deceptions we use are:

1. The addictions or habits we create. [We identify things that have the power to keep our thoughts away from an internal conflict confrontation; often we don't like things that bother us, either inside or outside ourselves: we become dependent on the possibility that this thing has to keep away from what we fear. ]

2. Manic Hare. [A sadness that we have not been able to accept, is often covered with an exaggerated dose of manic joy. ]

3. Denigration. [We tell ourselves that we just don't care about anything... not because it's true, but because we can't have it, or get to it.]

4. The Centority. [We can become provisional or disapproval of some people or behaviors to unscramble the part inside of us that actually likes the forbidden conduct in question.] [When our feelings become devious, we attack them when we find them in someone else. ]

5. The victimization. [When we feel offended, we get all attention. We disturb the waters. When we are defensive, we take no note of information that may be correct and challenging. ]

The problem with self - denial is that when we do so, we lose many opportunities for personality growth. The things we deny are painful, but they also contain key materials that are important to our overall development. If we were to cope with the thoughts, needs, and desires of others, we would learn to travel more freely with our minds and honesty to ourselves would make us more creative, interesting, and satisfying.  ) The School of Life, translated by Periscope