The Cycle of Self Deception(Desire to Feel Right)

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool.” -Richard Feynman

When I was a boy, my parents often praised me for being intelligent: “Vishal, you’re so smart”; “You’re an intelligent boy”; “You’re as bright as kids come.”

Later, I learned their well-intentioned compliments were setting me up to play the fool.

When I started my first job, I found myself around seriously intelligent people. I remember one day, when I was sitting in a business meeting with several attorneys, I had the realization that I wasn’t all that intelligent. Whenever one of them asked me to explain my reasoning, I’d stammer, backtrack, and manage to say almost nothing to the point.

When I reflected on my terrible performance, I realized that most of my learning hadn’t equipped me to defend a position against intense scrutiny. Defending a position required more than memorizing facts; it required understanding the Why and How behind the facts. Yet most of my education had been geared toward memorizing things, not understanding them.

The pattern continued into adulthood. Even though I read widely, it wasn’t aimed at developing understanding; it was aimed instead at collecting talking points that I could use to impress family, friends, or…