Thanks for posting this, Mike. It is indeed a painfully good read.
A number of times when I have had a show, I have had the option of choosing x-many of my own prints to fill the space, or of letting the curator make the selection from a somewhat larger pool. Whenever I have opted to have someone else do the selection, I have learned some good things about my own work.
And whenever I try to choose my "best" from a particular set of photos, it helps to revisit the selection over a lengthy period to decide which ones really are keepers.