How often do you make assumptions?\u00a0 Just take a guess.\u00a0 Rarely?\u00a0 Now and then?\u00a0 I bet it\u2019s closer to multiple times a day.\u00a0 It\u2019s not easy to gauge, really, because it\u2019s that little inner voice we have.\u00a0 The one we\u2019re so used to hearing we forget that it is there and<\/i> that usually doesn\u2019t have our best interest at heart.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a scenario:\u00a0 You\u2019re walking down a hallway alone and then one person whom you know is walking towards you.\u00a0 You attempt eye contact, waiting for that moment to spring your gorgeous smile and friendly \u201cHello!\u201d on them, but even though that eye contact comes, it\u2019s quickly diverted.\u00a0 You\u2019re a bit surprised, since you know them, they know you\u2026you think about your last interaction and remember it was positive, so you start going through your head trying to figure out why they looked away.\u00a0 What\u2019s her<\/i> problem? Is she mad at me?\u00a0 I thought she liked me\u2026am I wrong?\u00a0 Wait.\u00a0 She\u2019s friends with that Sheila psycho that I can\u2019t stand\u2026Sheila has influenced her!<\/p>\n
See?\u00a0 I bet this is familiar to you.\u00a0 Now think for a minute.\u00a0 It could be a million reasons why she looked away.\u00a0 A million reasons that have ab-so-lute-ly no-thing<\/span><\/i> to do with you.\u00a0 But we go there, don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n The problem with making assumptions is that 1 \u2013 we\u2019re making them, and 2- we tend to believe them.\u00a0 Of course, until we\u2019re proven wrong.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t usually happen.\u00a0 (The \u201cproven wrong\u201d thing.)\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, because we don\u2019t tend to look beyond our assumptions. We\u2019ve got this bubble we live in. We feel safe there; happy to keep to ourselves with our anxiety, fragility, fear and ignorance.\u00a0 In our bubble, everything we\u2019ve ever assumed is categorized and tidy.\u00a0 But is that good for you? Do you really want to live in that bubble?<\/p>\n Our assumptions tend to be highly negatively skewed and that negative slant greatly hurts us and our relationships with others.<\/p>\n Let me be clear here, this goes beyond the interpersonal 1:1 assumptions we make.\u00a0 Assumptions are widespread and universal.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go through some common ones within our American society:<\/p>\n You\u2019ve probably heard these before.\u00a0 These are all untrue, yet so easy to leave in that bubble.\u00a0 Analyzing our assumptions takes effort.\u00a0 First of all, we need to ask ourselves why we accept them \u2013 whether they are about ourselves and our value\/worth, or about others.\u00a0 Then we need to let them go.\u00a0 Make room for a different story and check it out with other people.\u00a0 Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you think or want.\u00a0 Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness and drama.<\/p>\n What\u2019s a better outcome for that hallway scenario described above?\u00a0 You could say hello to your acquaintance regardless of eye contact and keep going on your merry way.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know why they didn\u2019t look at you, but unless they tell you, then you have no reason to assume anything at all.\u00a0 If they\u2019re more than an acquaintance, pause and ask if everything is alright.<\/p>\n Challenge:<\/strong> Watch the assumptions, interpretations and meanings you assign to things.\u00a0 Instead of assuming\u2014check your assumption out by exploring it.\u00a0 Ask people directly what they mean, why they did what they did, etc.\u00a0 This one move could save you a lot of hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How often do you make assumptions?\u00a0 Just take a guess.\u00a0 Rarely?\u00a0 Now and then?\u00a0 I bet it\u2019s closer to multiple times a day.\u00a0 It\u2019s not easy to gauge, really, because it\u2019s that little inner voice we have.\u00a0 The one we\u2019re so used to hearing we forget that it is there and that usually doesn\u2019t have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZZxW-zI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n