I will try to be as objective as I can with such a subjective question. I believe that there is a great deal of truth that I generally assimilate information at an above average rate. I also believe I am guilty of creating a false reality in which I excel at everything I do. In truth, I only choose to do things which I am good at.

As I said in the original meditation, humans are notoriously bad at recognizing and changing undesireable behavior in themselves. I have spent years shattering the illusions I have created for myself and still struggle with them every day. We justify things to ourselves to protect our fragile egos.

Helping others and learning are two things that I value very highly. Judging from the recent poll, I am not the only one. Change is a long an arduous journey but it starts with a single step ;-)

I also believe I am guilty of creating a false reality in which I excel at everything I do.

Is it a false reality? Or is it that you are so focused on certain aspects of what you do (aspects at which you likely do excel), that sometimes you don't notice the parts in which you are deficient.

I myself tend to do this quite often, I find something I enjoy and then hyper-focus on it, sometimes to the detriment of other aspects of my $work/$play/@etc. Sure I do my best to not neglect the "not-so-fun" stuff, but it never really gets the attention it deserves. You only need to look in my leaf clogged rain gutters to see evidence of this ;)

I think though that this is a natural human tendency, and one which is probably not such a bad thing in our ever-expanding and ever more specialized world.

In truth, I only choose to do things which I am good at.

Of course you do, because there is a good chance that you enjoy doing those things which you are good at. I mean after all, if you didn't enjoy them (on some level, some "sicker" than others), then you would not have done them enough to get good at them. I see absolutely nothing wrong with this at all, in fact I think it is an admirable quality.

And from a practical business point of view, people who enjoy what they do make the best employees because the take pride in their work. In fact, my $boss considers it a requirement, more so than any type of college degree.

-stvn

I believe that there is a great deal of truth that I generally assimilate information at an above average rate.

I strongly believe learning works by hooking what you don't know onto what you do know. Essentially, this is what I call the framework theory of knowledge assimilation. If you don't know algebra, you cannot possibly understand calculus. If you don't understand set theory, you cannot possibly understand relational databases. If you don't understand how emotions work, you cannot possibly understand how people work. (Sociopaths would fall under this category, along with a lot of computer programmers I know.)

The more similar the information you're trying to learn is to your current framework, the faster you'll "understand" it because it will "hook into" your current framework very quickly. So, if you're only learning about computer programming (and similar topics), as a professional computer programmer, you'll assimilate the information much faster than someone who doesn't have your credentials. Compare that with how quickly you would assimilate how to build an overhead cam or how to make traditional Japanese cuisine (a la Iron Chef).

I ran into this in highschool. I hated Biology, because it was all memorization. By that point, I had already created my framework to be rules-based, not knowledge-based. Thus, because I wasn't being presented with the rules behind the nomenclature, I was having a hard time learning the order-phylum-genus stuff. Contrast that with how quickly I picked up math, a completely rules-based system. All I had to do in math was figure out which rule went where and I could derive everything else.

We justify things to ourselves to protect our fragile egos.

I'm not so sure our egos need to be fragile. I'm discovering that ego is strongly related to fear, in particular the fear of being alone. Humans do some really stupid stuff based on that fear, usually resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's very possible to live in an ego-lite way without too much work, just by figuring out how you stack up against the fear of being alone. (Note: I'm not saying "defeat" the fear. My belief is that no matter how you choose to deal with that fear, the very fact that you're consciously dealing with it will allow you live in an ego-lite way.)

---

My criteria for good software:

1. Does it work?
2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

double++ to all your responses and L~R's thread.

Thinking about a strong ego makes me think of Mr. T:

I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody's mouth is 'Mr.' That's a sign of respect that my father didn't get, that my brother didn't get, that my mother didn't get. wikiquote/Mr._T