I think I first heard the phrase “Self betrayal” in “The Anatomy of peace” (which is an excellent book, fyi).
Self betrayal means doing something that goes against your values. Why do we engage in self betrayal? Probably part of it is we are running avoid_discomfort.cpp. Some kind of bias towards not breaking the status quo.
Example:
- Have inclination “I should do nice thing”
- Subconcciously, something like avoid_discomfort.cpp starts running
- If you are weak / unpracticed at noticing this and countering it or whatever:
- Have secondary analytical thought, i.e., justification
- e.g., “Oh, but that would be akward for reason X.”
- or, “I couldn’t really do that, because reason X”
- tldr: excuses
What are the consequences of self-betrayal? Extremely bad.