The title of this post comes from the book, The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz.
Anyway — assumptions. We all do it. Me too.
Why? We think it makes our lives easier. Uncertainty, blank space, can be hard.
And yet, how annoying to be on the receiving end of them.
For me, whenever I’m in a conversation with someone and it’s become obvious that they’ve made an assumption about me or something in my life, I’ve felt a mix of irritation and wonder — why didn’t they just….ask?
And also amusement. Usually, the person is wrong. Like way wrong to the point that it’s comical. What they’ve imagined is a movie script, perhaps. A fantasy, maybe. But, my life? Nah.
Look, it’s hard to deal with uncertainty. It’s hard to feel like we don’t know things. Most things we can know easily by looking it up on the internet or by reading in a book or in the Economist. Most things we are smart enough to learn, somehow. WE ARE SMART PEOPLE OVER HERE.
But, it’s harder to apply this to people’s lives, isn’t it? Especially if we never learned how to socialize, authentically. Which is perhaps many of us! And also a certain of us.
So instead, we resort to making assumptions. There, that’s better.
We go searching for clues, kinda like Blues Clues, and we use the clues to string together something we tell ourselves is the truth. There that’s better.
Or we use things like digital word-of-mouth or gossip or searching or procuring information on the internet through all sorts of errrr creative means. There that’s better! Feels nice, doesn’t it. Aaahhhh.
With this information in hand, we use an assumption, or a few, to fill in any blanks.
We’re smart and perceptive and can figure things out. We know people, right? We know how to read them. We can just tell.
Except, you don’t. You may have satisfied ….yourself in stringing together something that feels, to you, like truth.
But really all you have is your very own little story. You might be a good writer of stories, perhaps. But a knower of the person you wish to know? You are not. Too bad. Sorry not sorry.
That’s the reality. We don’t know the truth, in this case. What we’ve constructed is a story. A fantasy. A delusion. How sad.
Of course we could avoid all of this drama by simply asking the person a question.
The problem? Asking a question involves the discomfort we might seek to avoid.
Asking a question implies we don’t know the answer. It implies we are ignorant about something. It also implies that we care enough to want to know. It implies that we are paying attention. We aren’t, as it turns out, too important or too “busy” to be concerned.
In other words, it makes us vulnerable. Aye aye aye scary stuff!
So we. just. don’t. ask.
Instead, we make an assumption. There that’s better.
But is there a way to know someone without asking them questions directly? I don’t think so. I mean sure you might be able to sense one’s emotional state through interacting with them. But you can’t know facts about someone from a distance, without asking.
That’s the rub, right? You can’t know until You Know. And you can’t Know until you ask the question you’re afraid of asking. Oh crap! What a conundrum. Let’s go back to making assumptions amirite?!
….so now that we know that assumptions are unhelpful and unnecessary and do nothing but shield you from the fear of your fundamental ignorance what do we do?
I have a few suggestions. Check out my blog for more of this post.
Michele writes on many topics, including self-awareness and personal development. For more ideas and inspiration, check out her Patreon page here.
