The only people who crave change are wet babies. I first heard that maxim from my grandmother, and it has remained a favorite of mine ever since. At first, I heard it as a way to heap opprobrium on my elders, including grandma herself, who refused to see how my generation was the one sent by the cosmos to transform a wicked society into a much better one. I was ready for change, I told myself; it was just the older generation that stood in the way with their resistance to the inevitable, the true, and the just.
As I grew older, I realized that we were all in it together: None of us really want change. Grandma was even more right than I had realized. We’d rather be right about the seaworthiness of a sinking ship, and drown, than we would to admit the flaw and climb into the lifeboats.
We go to great lengths to maintain our current beliefs, including self-deception, which may be the most dangerous way we hang on to the mess we’re in rather than leave it for greener pastures.
In fact, so good are we at self-deception as a way of avoiding change, that we maintain a portfolio of four options to stay on our own straight and incorrect.
The first is when we want to continue to believe or do something difficult and would find the truth inconvenient or de-motivating. This tactic can look like a strength in the short run, as when…
