“We prefer to believe the story is true.”

Good lesson in rationalization in the photo above. If you cause suffering and have the self-awareness to realize you did so, either the story is true (you did cause suffering), or you’re a bad person/villain. If you inflict suffering on yourself, either the story is true (you went victim) or you’re a gullible fool and potentially a performative wokester in the modern canon. No one wants to be the bad guy or the gullible fool — some people very much want to be the victim, however, myself included sometimes — and as a result, we prefer to believe that the story is true. While this set-up isn’t perfect because it pushes down self-awareness and acknowledges rationalization in many ways, the fact that is most of work, most of politics, and a good chunk of relationships are about the preference for an idea to be true, as opposed to the true reality of the moment. I prefer to believe Biden had extra votes. I prefer to believe this person is my friend, even though we know from research that 50% of friendships believed to be two-way are really one way. I prefer to believe this is the best product launch strategy. We prefer certain narratives because they work with our belief structures and the moment we’re in. That doesn’t always mean those narratives are accurate, reflective of anything, or even remotely true. Remember: we live in a belief-driven world that we only pretend is a data-driven world.