|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back to reality when we veer too far off.
|
092 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
All of us, as we tell our stories, add details and omit inconvenient facts; we give the tale a small, self-enhancing spin.
|
096 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
…most of us, most of the time, are neither telling the whole truth nor intentionally deceiving.
|
096 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
…when we write our own histories, we have the same goals as the conquerors of nations have: to justify our actions and make us look and feel good about ourselves and what we did or failed to do.
|
097 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
The daily, dissonance-reducing distortions of memory help us make sense of the world and our place in it, protecting our decisions and beliefs.
|
098 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
…[it’s] disorienting… to realize that a vivid memory, one full of emotion and detail, is indisputably wrong…
|
099 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
We do not remember everything that happens to us; we select only highlights.
|
100 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
Because memory is reconstructive, it is subject to confabulation…
|
101 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
…when we learn that a memory is wrong, we feel stunned, disoriented, as if the ground under us has shifted. It has made us rethink our own role in the story.
|
104 |
|
|
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me):
Parent blaming is a popular and convenient form of self-justification because it allows people to live less uncomfortably with their regrets and imperfections.
|
104 |
