Self-Deception

Actually, it is a lot more complicated than you realize.

Good at what you do is not necessarily good at what someone else does.  In fact, you might not even be as good at what you do as you think you are.  Studies show that “successful people” don’t see how much luck has contributed to their success. 

But even if you are remarkably good at what you do, there is a lot you don’t know about the rest of the world.  We think about what we do as complicated, because we have dealt with the complications.  Are we equally aware of how complicated everything else is? 

Let’s say you are in a maze.  Turn after turn.  Walls on all sides.  Yes, it’s complicated.  But you get to the other side.  You solve it.   A little luck?  Maybe.  But face it; you are good at handling this kind of “trouble.”  Are you likely to see everyone else’s problems as mazes?  And are you equally likely to think they are not as tough as the one you solved?  And that you could solve them? 

And we are not even taking account of the “team” that worked with you and deserves more credit than you are willing to acknowledge.  Good luck plus good team plus some skill on your part.  You were a “success.” 

If you take such thinking to an extreme, and I’m thinking about people new to the problems facing governments who are extreme in their self-confidence, you will “break” a lot of things you think you are fixing.  You trust your “judgement”—your instinctive grasp of what needs to be done.  And you never really learn.  Surrounded by people who, like some toy doll, can only say one thing, “Yes, Mr. President,” you grow in arrogance and self-satisfaction.  Sound familiar.  It should. 

As voters we have some control over this problem.  But do we use it? 

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