The TV show American Idol has revealed a well known condition that we all suffer from to some degree in one area or another. That is we believe we are better than we actually are. When we watch Idol and see wannabe singers stand up and audition with no obvious training or natural we can’t believe that they believe they even bothered turning up. Sadly what we miss are our own self delusions. For example when I began learning guitar as a young teen I believed that I was pretty good. It was only after about 3 months of lessons that I realised how bad I really was. I listened back to some of the recordings I did in my first 2 years while self teaching and they were really bad. We all do it. The question is where are you guilty of self delusion right now?

David J. Hart