The world today is full of people who have told and lived a lie.
Elizabeth Holmes, a biotech entrepreneur, had been announced in 2015 as the youngest and richest self-made female billionaire. She has been arrested and tried for fraud and is currently facing 20 years in jail. Anna Sorokin – aka Anna Delvey, who masqueraded as a German heiress, and conned the influential society in New York of a lot of money claimed to be in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then the infamous Shimon Hayut, aka Simon Leviev – the Tinder Swindler guy.
What all of these people have in common are not just the lies they fed to other people, but the lies they must have believed about themselves. They all believed their actions were right and somehow justified, and sincerely believed that they would not be caught.
One might think that this type of behavior is a relatively uncommon phenomenon, restricted to some extraordinary situations. But egotism is incredibly common and may have developed to show some unique benefits. We lie to ourselves to protect our self-identities, which allows us to act dishonestly while maintaining a crystal clear conscience. According to the very latest research, egotism may have even evolved to help us in the coercion of other people. If we begin convincing ourselves of our lies, it will become a lot simpler to get other people to believe them, too.
