I want to begin with a serious question: How accurate would you be if someone asked you to evaluate yourself? For example, if you were asked to describe your athletic ability, or your appearance, or your intellect--how would you rate yourself? I ask that because a survey of nearly two hundred sociologists found that about a hundred of them, about one-half, expected to become one of the ten leading sociologists of their time. Obviously this is a mathematical impossibility for 100 of them to be among the top ten sociologists. The survey also found that more than half of them hoped to achieve immortality via their sociological research: they thought their writings would still be read after they died. (1)

Of course these were sociologists. One could expect a little misplaced ego out of them. …