In the popular fairy tale Snow White, an evil queen tries to off the fair lady Snow White because SW has grown up to be a beautiful gal that surpasses her evil stepmother. The story sounds all fine and dandy even as an adult but when you think about it, the stepmother was vicious for sure but she clearly wasn’t thinking clearly, as her actions made no logical sense. I’m just going to use a personal example….. I, like the said stepmother can also be vain sometimes and I would long to have gorgeous 6-pack abs (well, at this point, I’m willing to settle for 4-pack abs). In my vanity, I check out the other ladies at the gym and make the relative comparison—it’s somewhat rare to find these “unicorn” abs but they do exist— a small handful of other gals at the gym have gorgeous chiseled abs—if I were to try to off them or better yet, feed them steak and buttermilk biscuits for a month to fatten them up, it actually doesn’t help me—my abs of steel are still elusive to me. Similarly, for the poor queen, she’s so desperate for beauty that she is willing to delude herself into thinking that offing Snow White improves her own situation. But before we admonish the queen’s nonsensical and self-defeating behavior, we should also do a mirror, mirror on the wall too (pun intended)—because like the queen, we actually deceive ourselves too (either consciously or unconsciously) all the time!

My goal is not to make you feel bad—otherwise I would have named the blog Glass very Empty. But it is good to become aware of when you’re deluding yourself—because self-delusion isn’t going to make you fairer in beauty or get you the 6-pack abs you want. Most of us likely aren’t aware that we’re actually doing it so shining a light on it at least gives us more of a fighting chance. As they say, the first step to solving a problem is admitting there is one to solve.                                                                                          

Unique snowflake syndrome. I believe the technical term for this is the self attribution bias but I like to call it the “unique snowflake syndrome”—we all like to think we are special in some way. I think this syndrome particularly affects adults. If you think about it, kids really just want to fit in—think back to your childhood. I for example, had to have bell bottom jeans in middle school because it was popular and dark nail polish when the goth trend was a thing for a hot second. Somehow when we grow up, we become more narcissistic and desperately want to believe we’re special, unique, and above average in some way (or every way).  For example, a representative study in 2018 found that 65% of Americans thought they were above average in intelligence. By the way, if you repeat this study for beauty or driving skills, I’m sure you’d get similar results—seriously how am I to find a mate if I’m just “average” looking?! However, from a statistical standpoint, it’s impossible for the 65% to be true—the mere definition of average means it’s the 50% line—eg 50% of people are above the line and 50% are below the line. You many think well what’s the big deal?! Isn’t it better to just feel good about myself….well I think the answer is yes but…….These self-serving beliefs, as much as they may give our egos a nice boost can actually lead to unhealthy and risky behavior (like doling out poisonous apples for example). Let’s say I think I’m an above average driver, I might decide that it’s okay to drive after 2 glasses of wine since I will definitely be able to steer clear of potholes and avoid a deer that runs into the road in the middle of the night. (if you live in a place with no deer, feel free to replace with something more plausible).

It’s all relative. I’m sure we’ve heard that expression a million times by now—and it’s so true it’s frightening. I once hear the saying, “you’re only as rich as your neighbor” and that’s because we don’t think in absolutes but how we compare to other people. Researchers Solnick and Hemenway in 1998 conducted a survey of Harvard students that proves this exact point. Now let’s do this in real time—which of the options would you prefer? Option 1: your job pays you $50,000 a year and everyone else in your firm earns $25k per year or option 2: you earn $100k per year but everyone else in your pay grade earns $250k a year. Punchline is over 50% of people would rather get paid half as much only to feel better about their relative position to their peers. Really guys?! With$100k (vs. $50k), that’s presumably much fancier dinners, better vacations, and the ability to splurge more often. But alas, that’s not the math the brain does. And don’t worry, I’m not on my high horse preaching at you—I also compare myself to others on a very regular basis---I compare myself to magazine cover celebrities with better bodies, my high school friends who are seemingly in adoringly happy relationships, the colleague that seems to be killing it as work, and a slew of others. But here’s the thing, if you must compare, then trick yourself into comparing for self-improvement and try your best to skip the wildly unrealistic comparisons. For example, while I’d love to have the body of Megan Fox, it just really ain’t a fair fight here—she’s a model turned actress—it’s her job to look hot. When you find yourself in that situation (benchmarking yourself to a celebrity or other unobtainable person), ask yourself—what would it look like if the said celebrity did my job? The thought of Megan Fox working on excel spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations crack me up. So instead, compare—but use it as motivation—if your sister-in-law is a marathon runner and you compare your 5k running skills to her, try to use that as a way to push yourself. I’ve heard the advice that don’t compare, run in your own lane—but I’d actually like to modify that—Compare, just make sure you have a good chance catching up to the person in the next lane.

That’s not fair! Research has show that most people are prone to the “just world” phenomenon—eg the world has to be fair. As a libra (it’s the star sign that’s a scale), I am especially guilty of the fairness  principle in my thinking. But here’s where it leads us astray—by thinking the world is fair, we also end up with a lot of pre-conceived notions of how the world should be (vs. how it actually is)—but in actuality, the world can sometimes just be darn random and when the randomness of reality doesn’t match our pre-conceived expectations, we lose our marbles (or some of us do). Have you ever seen a set of gorgeous parents produce a less than attractive baby? How can that be? If mom and dad were both super model look alikes, then even if 1+1 doesn’t equal 3, how did we end up with 1+1 = 1.5? Well, the answer is…drumroll please….well, heck why would I know? And neither do the brightest scientist, geneticist, or physic reader. In a similar vein, the queen in Snow White probably is thinking—“what the heck, I’ve spent years on potions and spells to preserve my beauty and this brat comes out of no where to best my in my looks. How unjust of the world—of course I should poison her.” Note the queen did no actual thing—just a figment of my vivid imagination but it’s very plausible that she would. I’m not saying I believe the world is totally unfair—the point is it’s sometimes fair and sometimes not—and the level of fairness is often randomly distributed so being married to the notion that because you did x and now deserve y according to your understanding of fairness, can only lead you to have heartburn.

Do any of the 3 self-deluding fallacies above sound familiar? Perhaps you knew about them already or perhaps you didn’t? Or perhaps you knew about them and continue to delude yourself anyways—and let’s face it, we all do it sometimes. But just once in a while—Imagine the talking mirror in Snow White—which represented an unbiased source of reality in the story by the way, and now it’s the one giving you some tough love—you aren’t the special snowflake you thought, stop comparing yourself to unrealistic goals, and the world just ain’t fair sometimes. And guess what? That’s all OK! Those things can all be true but it doesn’t make you any less of a person, it doesn’t make your spouse love you less, and it certainly doesn’t make you less able to enjoy the pleasures of life! Now feel free to invest in a fancy mirror!