Self-deception affords you the opportunity to enjoy seeing yourself as having attained everything you wanted in life, without ever attaining it. It also allows you to believe you have acheived something, without doing the work to acheive it. It allows you to shift your attention from things you don’t want to face up to, which then null the feelings of convictions that would inspire you to change. So we stay the same and repeat the same cycle of living until the self-deception is acknowledged and confronted.
These are my brief thoughts inspired by the book: ‘i told me so’ by Gregg a. Ten Elshof