Fooling Ourselves

Hey everyone! It's officially turkey day on the East Coast (here in Del Rio, we're still shy approximately five minutes)! I could blog about how I spent all day making pies, but I won't. It was pretty anticlimactic (although, I confess that I did have a little taste of my friend Brenda's famous pumpkin bars just to make sure I didn't screw them up (I didn't - and yum!)). Instead, I thought of the perfect blog topic the other night: why do we fool ourselves?

I'm sure we're all guilty of the occasional white lie every now and then. (Frankly, I don't think I could be friends with someone who didn't engage in this practice once in awhile. It's just human nature and a useful resource for sparing feelings.) But what I really don't get is when we try to trick ourselves into believing something. Don't we know ourselves well enough by this point in life? How could we fall for such a thing?

A simple example of this is my constant need to rationalize what I eat. Oh, food regrets - those are the worst. So, in an effort to assuage the guilt I feel after gorging on some snack or sweet, I'll often try to convince myself that I didn't have a full serving or that it didn't have any calories as the package says because it's Sunday or something. Do I buy these ridiculous excuses? No, not really. But I continue to do it, time and time again.

The ultimate attempt to fool myself, though, is when I insist that I am not, I am NOT falling asleep. Here's what I mean: Often, when I'm snuggled up on the couch at night watching the boob tube, I'll start to doze off. But I'm not willing to throw in the towel yet. Oh no. I will finish, MUST finish whatever pointless thing I'm watching. So here's my genius plan: I will simply rest my eyes for a little while, but not to worry - I will still be able to follow the story, sporting event, what-have-you, by LISTENING.

Has this strategy ever worked? Nope. Not even once. Not when my brother and I stayed up late while we were in high school watching "Zapped Again" (which Scott Baio was evidently too good for) on one of the cheap local cable channels. Not during my first three attempts at getting all of the way through the movie "Fletch" (great movie, but it was like some kind of weird curse - sometime after Fletch told them to "put it on the Underhill's tab," the sandman would pay me a visit). Not when I watched my Ti-Fauxed episode of "Samantha Who?" from the other night. (I would start the episode, fall asleep about five minutes in, wake up at some point after the credits and, INCREDIBLY, try to get through it again - with the same master plan.)

The point? I'm not fooling anyone. But you can't blame me for trying.