The Just World Fallacy, for instance, grants people living in an oppressive system the peace to believe they in a just world, where Good People get richer and Bad People get poorer, but at the cost of acknowledging the system; this emotional need is so intense that people who suffer the most from oppressive systems are the most invested in ignoring the problems it generates.

In the past, the Just World answered the obvious inequities of reality with Messiahinism and then with personal salvation (or punishment) in the afterlife. Today, we've replaced that with the The Myth of Progress, letting people believe they are on a boat of social evolution that leads to first technological, then social, then finally moral perfection of the human species (perhaps ending in Rodenberry's vision of luxury space communism). Honestly, what is the difference between the early Christian belief that the Messiah will return and create a Heaven on Earth and the belief that eventually replicators will create a post-scarcity society?

Agency is another determinative emotional need. People need to feel in control of their lives. It's a relative of the Just World fallacy, but it is its own motor. Manifestation is ultimate expression of this--a bedrock belief that everything that happens to us, happens to us because we are THINKING about it. Lost your job? You must have been worried about getting fired. Win the lottery? You must have believed you could win! Can't find romance? It's because you doubt yourself. Everything in life is ultimately your fault, including not being a billionaire, which is possible for everyone if they just believe in themselves.

This absolutely ridiculous idea, and several like it, catapulted Oprah Winfrey to super-billionaire status, sold 20 million copies of the secret, is the animus behind vision boards, etc.

I'm not really trying to convince you of anything, because there is no reasoning about this. My two going theories are: we see what we see (or believe what we believe) when we're ready to see it (or ready to believe it). For instance, people don't become atheist the first time they hear an argument against the extistence of God, but when they're emotionally ready to live without God.

The other theory is that I'm just following the same programming as everyone else, looking for reason to emotionally comfort me. Maybe it suits me better to think the world is a miserable place only because the alternative is to think that there is something deeply BROKEN and WRONG with me given where I am in life right now. Maybe I don't want to believe in my own agency to control my future because I'm so tired of trying and failing and I just don't have any strength left for the struggle.