Hi, Mary - as always, I welcome your thoughts and reactions:)

Two excellent lines to remember and share ... upon reading your reply, I immediately thought of "Better safe than sorry" and was struck by how that follows logically from the first line "Being busy is usually being safe".

Security is a basic human need, so it is logical that if an activity (appearing busy) results in feeling safe, we are going to do it.    The unspoken result of being safe is that we lose opportunities to be happy, to make connections with others, and to experience life more fully, which are also basic human needs.

Maybe our approach to recognizing and reducing our self-deceptions has to include both building awareness of when our logic is not completely valid and becoming able to see not just what we are gaining, but what we are losing ... a broader picture.

Now you have my intellectual motor going - thanks:)

John