Self-deception

"A messenger was sent on a urgent mission to a distant city. He saddled up his horse and set off at gallopp. After passing several inns where animals like him were normally fed, the horse thought: 'We're not stopping to eat at any stables, which means that I'm being treated, not like a horse, but like a human being. Like all other men, I will eat in the next city we reach'.
But the cities all passed by, one after the other, and his rider continued on his way. The horse began to think 'Perhaps I haven't changed into a human being after all, but into an angel, becuase angels have no need to eat'. Finally, they reached their destination and the animal was let to the stable, where he greedily devoured the hay he found there.
'Why believe that things have changed simply because they do not happen quite as expected?' he said to himself. 'I'm not a man nor an angel. I'm simply a hungry horse'."

- from 'Like the flowing river' by Paulo Coelho -