Optimistic Delusion

Ever notice how little children insist on doing things they aren't able to do? Not content with what they've already learned, they want to do what bigger people do, and we have to tell them "you can't do that!" Does that make them give up? Absolutely not, it only seems to make them want to do it more.
Then we grow up into adults who delude themselves into thinking that they are strong enough to do things they can't?

I am a dismal failure at snow skiing.
In spite of that, I still used to tell myself that I should be able to ski, all I had to do was try harder.
That's how I found myself duped into riding a ski lift in the Sierra Nevadas one Christmas. Why would I ever think that I couldn't ski?  It shouldn't matter that I don't seem to have the strength in my legs to stop skiing, or that I have a fear of heights, or some strange aversion to going fast. Why should that be a problem?
I couldn't even get off the ski lift without falling, and that's when I began to seriously doubt my resolve. What was I thinking when I thought I could do this? After a few more falls and the terrifying sensation of picking up speed, I was crumpling, or at least as best as one can crumple while wearing ridiculously long, heavy, floppy poles on their feet.
"I can't do this!" kept screaming in my head. "Why can't you do this?", my other personality kept yelling back.  "I don't know! Because I'm too weak! Because I'm a pitiful failure! Happy now!"
Oh great, I'm going to melt into a weak-looking mass of tears. Perfect! Would somebody just shoot me now, I'm going to die here anyway.
I can't understand it. Millions of people can ski, why can't I? I should be able to do this! I should be strong enough to pull myself together, stand up on those blasted skis and sail down this incredibly steep and slick mountainside. Instead, I'm staring into my husband's face while he walks my skis down the mountain one step at a time with his skis, patiently telling me I can do this, in response to my cries that I can't! Ugh!
I hate being pitiful.
I hate being weak.
I want to believe that I can do anything.
I'm always telling myself that I should be able to do this, and angry at myself when I can't.
It would seem that my working premise is that I should be strong enough, that I should be able to cancel weakness with strength of determination. Does it work? Not usually, but I keep thinking it will.

Do you do this too?
Do you say to yourself, "I should be strong enough to do this"?
It isn't that I think I'm strong, but that I have this optimistic delusion that I think I should be strong.
Does that delusion trip me up when I try to crosswalk? Every single time! As long as I keep this delusion alive, I refuse to learn God's purpose for weakness in my life. As long as I keep telling myself that I can be strong, I refuse to die to self. Every time I have this hope of finally finding strength in myself, I lose out on the true power of weakness.

A dead man has no strength of his own; he never says to himself, "I should have been able to do that".