Our failures to update from interacting with reality spring primarily from three things: not having the right perspective or vantage point, ego-induced denial, and distance from the consequences of our decisions.

We very often fail to see our present circumstances in right perspective.

We express denial in our lives when we avoid certain people or issues and when we see things only as we want them to be rather than to accept them as they are. Underneath every denial pattern is the underlying fear that we will not be able to handle conflict and a deep human need to maintain peace, balance, and harmony at all costs. In deep denial we will abandon ourselves to keep the peace rather than communicate our feelings directly. (p81)

Those at too great a distance may, I am well are, mistake ignorance for perspective.

Those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective.

All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.

The chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem.

This is quite frankly about people being in denial. The biggest barrier is that we're in denial about our unconscious bias,"This investment in our self-image as good people is preventing us from moving forward. We don't need any more good people; we need real, authentic people.

Our egos don’t like to take blame.

We can rarely see things from the point of view of another person because we look at the facts through the screen of an impression or an interest which distorts our view; and then there are accusations, quarrels and misunderstanding.

The human mind has a primitive ego defince mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It's called denial.

a perspective gap: when we’re not experiencing a psychologically or physically intense state, we dramatically underestimate how much it will affect us.

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.

You’re putting your head in the sand. You don’t know basic facts about your life, like how much debt you have or what other people in your field are being paid for similar work. When you get into an argument, you run away until you forget rather than talking about what’s wrong and coming up with a solution. In other words, you are in denial, and so any hope of healing is futile.