As a practical philosopher, I love urging people on to new adventures, to the setting of new goals, and the pursuit of new possibilities. But I never want anyone to leap into a disaster. In the recent past, we've all seen far too many spectacular disasters result from people pursuing the wrong goals, and chasing the wrong things.
So many of the personal growth books of the past century have focused on the value of setting and maintaining goals that stretch us, and most have encouraged dreaming big or aiming high, but few have said much about the importance of having appropriate goals -- proper aims, or targets that are deeply right for us. In the wake of all the business disasters in our recent past, from the spectacular dot-com failures years ago, through the Enron Era, to our more recent troubles, and in view of the exciting times we face as we now move forward, times that are so full of promise and danger, this is a topic we all need to ponder. I want to share just a few thoughts today about avoiding the wrong goals.
Life often involves a paradoxical juxtaposition of opposites. For both adventurous and appropriate goal setting, we need to be at the same time bold and cautious -- bold enough to venture into unknown terrain when we hear the call to go forth, yet cautious enough to resist the siren song of goals that might look great from a distance, but ultimately would be bad to pursue. Avoiding the wrong goals can be every bit as important as embracing the right ones. And we all have one power that can sometimes make this tough.
One of the strongest and most insidious forces in human life is self-deception. The wisest among us can at times manage to fool ourselves into thinking that something we know to be wrong is actually perfectly permissible, and even advantageous to pursue in the circumstances we face. But, as Socrates is often quoted as saying, "The worst of all deceptions is self-deception." When we can't even trust ourselves, we lack the most basic resource we need for making our way forward well.
We can get so excited by the promise of a novel adventure, by an opportunity, or the prospect of something new, that we become strongly disinclined to listen to that little voice deep within whose whisperings might otherwise prompt us to stop. Whether understood as the voice of conscience, the guidance of God, the protection of a guardian spirit, or an uncanny survival instinct naturally provided by our evolutionary past, this inner sense of caution has been reported since at least the time of Socrates. The master thinker and dogged pursuer of truth claimed that, throughout the course of his life, whenever he was about to do something wrong, a voice within warned him off. And he reported that he always listened. The problem we all face is that our uncanny talent for self-deception can prevent us from properly responding to this voice that Socrates felt it so important to hear and heed.
Self-deception operates through selective attention and rationalization. It acts to license behavior that's in some way self-defeating or otherwise destructive. We can easily fool ourselves into believing we ought to pursue something that we know deep down to be wrong. And it's important to beware of this power. The supreme irony is that the smarter, more confident, and generally more persuasive we are, the better we can be at misleading ourselves.
As the highly intelligent, utterly poised, and masterfully persuasive rhetorician Demosthenes once said, "Nothing is as easy as deceiving yourself; for what you wish, you readily believe."
Unfortunately, there is no magic immunization against the ill of self-deception. But we do have some simple warning signs. When we're considering a possible goal, or contemplating a new line of action, it's best to be on the lookout for a few leading indicators that the power of self-deception may be playing a distorting role.
The rules and touchstones for detecting self-deception are basically what they always have been. Little things do matter. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And yet, in most other ways, things are rarely what they at first seem. When you're the only one who stands to benefit from something new, no one will really benefit. Feelings matter. Proper commitments should be honored. Time does fly. No enterprise is worth your energy for external results alone. And money isn't everything. Whenever you're tempted to think otherwise and flout any of these basic truths, beware of self-deception.
Alerted to the possibility that you're fooling yourself, you can at least be on guard, and be less likely deluded into pursuing a false course that will be destructive in the long run. Self-deception is such a powerful force in our lives that we cannot guarantee, even if we do spot it in action, that we'll be able to resist its subtle lure. But we can be watchful, and, understanding its pervasiveness in human thought, we can at least be less vulnerable to its worst depredations.
Anyone who is not omniscient will occasionally set wrong goals. And not just because of self-deception, since simple erroneous judgment, false information, and incomplete perspectives can result in goals that aren't right for us. The next best thing to avoiding the wrong goals is having the ability to spot when we have gotten on the wrong path, make a correction of course, and set off quickly in a better direction. We should never let pride, a fear of embarrassment, or the gravitational pull of inertia keep us on a course that we begin to discern is wrong. It's the very nature of life adventure to present new twists and turns, unexpected developments, and even occasional reversals of direction. The best adventures are led by instinct, intuition, and inspiration, aided by reason, regulated by the little Socratic voice that warns, and shaped by that sense of calling that goads us on to choose properly and adapt as needed along the way.
An additional point is important. We should never allow ourselves to wallow in regret about inappropriate goals we may have been pursuing. We need to just learn and move on. As preferable as it is to avoid the wrong path in the first place, it can serve to show us where the right road is. Sometimes the problems that result from seeking the wrong things can wake us up powerfully to what we really do need.
The ancient Greek word traditionally translated into English as "sin," is actually an archery term that means: "a miss of the proper target." It's not just the having of goals that's important for our lives. It's having the right and best goals for who we are. We should learn from our mistakes. Then, remembering that imperfection is natural, we should at least do what we can to go and sin no more.
Follow Tom Morris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TomVMorris
Maybe you can direct your friend Donald....
First, I think it was Stephen Spielberg who talked about the importance of listening to "the whisper" above the "shout". I took from that that no matter how much noise there is around us, it is the "whisper" within us that gives us clues about the appropriateness of our choices. Ignore the "whisper" and we do so at our peril.
Second, to me, the notion of self- deception carries with it a certain arrogance. What I mean by that is that there have been times in my life when I have made the same mistake twice simply because I fooled myself into believing that the rules of the universe were made for everyone but me. I learned differently, and painfully, that it just isn't so.
A very thought provoking post. Thank you.
Insightful, light, digestible but rich. I doubt you have reached the top of your game yet.
I believe people make many of their "bad decision" out of greed and jealousy. "If my neighbor can have a new $50,000 car, why can't I?" "Everyone's getting rich, so why not me?" Examples of the nature of entitlement that is so prevalent in the US are everywhere. Stockholders look at Quarterly earnings to determine how well they are doing, instead of long term goals of steady growth and stability. Most i"successful" ndividuals will tell you that hard work and determination are key. Rare is the person who gets rich quick who doesn't just as quickly fail.
I ask myself before I do anything - whether it's going to a party or an investment - is "What if this is how I'm remembered. What if I die, and this is my legacy. Is this the mark I wish to leave on the world?" If I can't answer YES, I don't do it. If my inner voice whispers instead of shouts, I'm alright, because I ask myself the most important question, and I ask it OUT LOUD.
Also reminds me of a few fellows in my small Ms town who had a great idea for a telephone company
and did it on a handshake at the local inn. it later was known as MCI. Think they had a good bow, but the arrow was crooked.
I think much self-deception is not self-deception at all; at least not in the business realm, but in that our past formal "business education" was all about "bottom line only".
I returned to school 7 years ago and learned the new business paradigm is not only about bottom line (of course very important (profit) but how to get there.
In the old school it was about persistence, numbers of phone calls, and/or personal meetings etc etc.
Today it is about knowing that we are TRULY in a global village (most of which needs our help in one way or another, and sometimes that help i s simply goodwill; actions, sometimes giving of money, time, etc.
It's just as easy to personally self-deceive; after all Napoleon was certain he was a Cassanova
but the best he could do was scratch his chest a lot.
Great article! Again.
This is a highly relevant post, thank you for sharing your thoughtful insights again. It brings to mind another issue which is self-deception in the workplace. I read a wonderful book by the Arbinger Group called Ledaership and Self Deception, within which is a metaphor based on a true story of an Austrian Doctor (Semmelweis) who discovered that doctors were looking outside themselves for solutions to high birth mortality rates but in fact the doctors were themselves the carriers of the disease because they did not wash their hands.
Self-deception blinds us to the true nature of problems, and once blind, all the “solutions” we can think of actually make matters worse.
Thanks again Tom - you help us think differently and look carefully into the morror of ourselves
Colin
When we were little, adults would bend over, chuck our cheeks, and ask us "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Somehow, we need to figure that out. We need to ask ourselves some hard questions, and not settle for goals that are put off on us by someone else, directly or indirectly. Our goals have to fit us.
Great, great post. Thank you.
Self-deception takes many forms. For example, how is it that the whole country watched White House officials simply refuse to respond to accusations of criminal wrongdoing--not once, but again and again? How did such outrageous behavior fail to rouse the people to protest an unacceptable situation? How is it that an entire nation of hard-working people gambles with their life savings as though they couldn't possibly lose? There are so many good examples that it makes my head spin!
From my perspective, the brains of the good people of the United States have been completely dismantled and devoured by self-deception--aided in no small measure, no doubt, by the self-indulgent crap they watch on television. It may be useless to "wallow in regret", but to walk away from bad decisions without self-reflection ends up reinforcing the faulty outlook that led to problems in the first place. In the political arena, we hear the same old song again and again: "Let's not dwell on the past..." Baloney! As Winston Churchill said: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Round and round we go...
Ann Evanston
http://Warrior-Preneur.com
The Warrior is within You