Situations have happened to everyone when our actions, to put it mildly, did not lead us to the desired result. It even happens that we only make things worse for ourselves, and, interestingly, worse for ourselves. In such cases, it is customary to say that they wanted the best, but it turned out as always. A funny excuse that doesn't explain anything. Meanwhile, this “as always” can happen very often. One can, of course, explain this state of affairs by unfavorable external conditions, ranging from bad weather to the incorrect location of the stars. But for some reason this doesn't help much. And people continue to do things that result in them suffering. Our whole life consists of certain actions that we do ourselves, of our own free will. An action always consists of two components. The first is motivation or the answer to the question why. And the second part of the act is the action itself. But it’s difficult to honestly answer the question: “Why am I doing this?” After all, we all want to look good in our own eyes. And therefore we begin to lie to ourselves precisely in motivation. I want to take revenge on someone, but people tend to talk and convince themselves that they are doing this out of a desire for justice. Another option is when we deceive ourselves that this is exactly what we want. Our motivation is to “punish” the person, but we “like” more that in this way we show care. Naturally, a person’s reaction will be to punishment, but he will not see our “care”. You want to annoy the person, but you convince yourself that by your behavior you will demonstrate your attention to him. Most often, such manifestations end in conflicts. And the most dangerous thing about this is that people themselves begin to believe their own lies. This is why people are so displeased when they are faced with a backlash. But even this is not the worst thing. Getting used to lying to themselves about their motivation, people stop noticing that that same boomerang is coming to them precisely because of this. After all, a person has convinced himself that he is guided by good motives, but his life is getting worse and worse. And the only point here is that we are afraid to admit to ourselves the real motives of our actions. Therefore, try to ask yourself more often the question “Why am I doing this?” Practicing psychologist Anton Chernykh