Self betrayal – the root cause of Self deception
Self-betrayal is acting contrary to what we feel we should do in a situation, for another person— not acting despite wanting to.
Examples: (i) in a mall we get into an elevator. As the doors start to close, we see someone scurry around the corner & race towards the lift. In an immediate moment we feel that we should hold the door for him — however in subsequent , momentary hesitation ( should I / should I not ) we don’t do anything & the lift moves on — we’d then justify / legitimize our act by thinking that the other person is lazy ; if he wanted , he could have run faster to the lift …. What did he do to get in that I should extend myself to help him?
(ii) Moment you felt like helping your spouse / child, but did not get to do it
(iii) You felt the need to apologize to someone, but did not do it
(iv) You had some information which could have been useful to a coworker, but just kept it to yourself
(v) A manager knows but fails to do a pre emptive review of work which can go wrong; when it does, he blames team member for not forewarning him but not blame self that he did not review in advance
In an act of self-betrayal, other person’s ‘faults or shortcomings ‘suddenly become more relevant to us, after we fail to help them. We begin to see the world in a way that justifies our failure / inaction. It makes us feel that what we are doing is right
Self betrayal is the germ that creates and sustains the disease of self-deception.
Like being in any other emotional state; a blame game (self-deception) too clouds our thinking & invariably leads to inaction.