How do you lie to yourself?

I love a good magic trick. I love the shock and awe of someone tricking me.  In this fun TED talk, the magician Marco Tempest claims being a magician is the only "honest" profession because it promises to deceive.

In this case, he uses phones from the audience and the talk is delightful.

Besides the fun, perhaps my favorite observation is when he describes the brain of compulsive gamblers...

"The brain is very good at forgetting.Bad experiences are quickly forgotten.Bad experiencesquickly disappear.Which is why in this vast and lonely cosmos,we are so wonderfully optimistic.Our self-deceptionbecomes a positive illusion."

I've never considered how the lies I tell myself can make things better, but now that he points this out, I think he's correct.

Or maybe I'm being deceived!