Choosing the truth

After yesterday's posting, my friend Nicole (audaciousness.blogspot.com) suggested I listen to http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/ - the most recent show on deception. There is a particular bit at the end of the show on self-deception. It describes how people who self-decieve are actually more sucessful. It's measurable through sport - on a women's swim team the most successful athletes are those who self-deceive the most. One researcher in particular points out that those who lie to themselves are protecting themselves from reality. He goes on to suggest that perhaps we are so fragile that this is a necessary mechanism, inherent to our survival.

You see, the supposition is that in us we have two realities, the one we know is true and the one our mind wants to be true, and somewhere in our subconscious a decision is made which to choose, and the successful, the winners more often choose their own version of reality. That's how one person wins out of two athletes with equal physiology and training.

I'm not sure how much I buy into psychology's ability to test these sorts of things, even though it all jibes with my experience enough to seem to make sense. But as for me I'd rather know my chances - I like to know what I'm up against, and nothing feels better than beating the odds.

It also makes me wonder again, just as the case of Rob Waddell did, what we could achieve if we got out of our own way. If we ignore the probabilities and aim for a goal that our rational mind knows we can't achieve, perhaps we are more likely to achieve the impossible, or at least the improbable.

They seem like strange bedfellows, but it seems that perhaps the greatest performance enhancers are hope, will, and self-deceit!