Dr. Todd Rose

So it's bad enough when the illusions start to warp our children's views of the kind of life that's worth living.

But it gets even worse when we think about the illusions related to the aspirations we have for our country, the way we want to treat one another, right?

Even what we want out of our institutions.

And I'm telling you, like, at this point, if you name anything that matters in society, I think it's a coin toss whether we're under a collective illusion or not.

It's exactly right.

You know, I fell for this with the toilet paper one, and I'm embarrassed to admit it, you know, because I was literally writing a book about it as it happened.

But, you know, we all thought, oh, we're going to be, there's not going to be enough toilet paper.

Well, I happen to know someone who actually owns one of the companies that makes toilet paper.

So I actually got firsthand verification that, in fact, there was no shortage, right?

Like, and if everybody just settled down, it's going to be fine.

However...

I couldn't help shake the feeling that I thought everybody else thought there was a shortage.

And so I thought, well, wait a minute, if I don't get the toilet paper, they're going to gobble it up and then I will have no toilet paper.

So sure enough, I'm going to my grocery store and I'm grabbing toilet paper and I became part of the problem.

And lo and behold,

There was a shortage because we all rushed to grab it.

Exactly.

I take full responsibility for that.

Here's what's funny.

My wife was like, what are you doing?