Lesslee Dort

How many assumptions do you make in a typical day? Go ahead — take a guess. Ten? Twenty? A hundred? I suspect we make so many that they melt away, becoming nearly impossible to identify.

We’re told something and accept it. We see something and interpret it. A text goes unanswered for a few hours, and suddenly the other person must hate us — or worse, they’re ignoring us with deliberate cruelty. Never mind that their phone battery died while they were tending to two kids and a beeping cell phone. I’d pick the kids, too!

The insidious thing about assumptions is that they are usually based on scraps of information, slices of truth, half-heard remarks, quick glances, or single actions — and we stitch this single threadbare scrap into a narrative. It’s like making a story quilt. Not the meticulously planned kind, but more of a scrappy patchwork-style — full of odd shapes and mismatched colors. And yet, we wrap ourselves in it and call it a true story.

Some time ago, I ran into a friend at the store. I was already feeling low, but I waved. She didn’t wave back. In fact, she looked right through me. My mind immediately jumped to: “She’s mad. I must’ve offended her. What did I say or do wrong?” That moment repeated in my consciousness for days when I happened upon a favorite Brene Brown TED Talk: The Power of Vulnerability, in which she states, “The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our lovability, divinity, and creativity.”

So, I asked my friend the next time I saw her. Know what I found out? She’d just had her eyes dilated and literally hadn’t seen me. That’s right. The woman could not see me. But for several days, I turned her silence into a morality tale where I was either the villain or the victim — depending on the hour.

Is it lazy or simply a symptom of modern life, saturated as it is with highly opinionated media personalities, edited images, and comment sections? Ms. Brown suggests we begin using the phrase, “The story I’m making up is…,” when we’re caught in the middle of an emotional assumption. It’s a way of owning that our brain is telling a story, not reporting a fact.

These stories we make up aren’t harmless. Our assumptions and fabrications reshape someone’s life in our minds. They also determine who we are and who we will become. Each layer of our belief system and how we accept and adapt to other people is forever impacted.

I believe the danger of assumptions become part of our identity and the identity we assign others. Someone doesn’t respond to a message, and we assume they’re ignoring us — so we get distant and harbor ill thoughts about someone we once felt fondly toward. A friend cancels plans, and we tell ourselves they don’t value us, so we stop trying, losing genuine interaction with a previously valued friend. Little by little, these imagined truths start building not just our version of others, but our personality and, ultimately, the identity we assign to ourselves is forever altered. Our trust shrinks. Our cynicism swells. All because we didn’t ask one simple question: “Hey, I saw you at the store the other day, is everything okay?”

When we assume, we’re not just reshaping the image of someone else — we’re reshaping ourselves, often not in a healthy manner. If I believe someone has hurt me but never ask for clarification, I’m voluntarily accepting days (or years) of quiet resentment that may have no grounding in truth. And what’s the worst that could happen if I do ask? They deny it and I don’t believe them. We’re no worse off. But if I do believe them? That’s relief. That’s repair. That’s a quilt I wouldn’t mind wrapping myself in.

I try to avoid drama. I appreciate and encourage honest communication, straightforward friendships. My closest friends don’t talk about one another behind our backs. We don’t need to; life is colorful enough without conjecture and suspicion. Plus, there is no upside to it. Conversations about someone else’s hypothesized behavior are nothing more than an invitation to hurt one or more of the parties involved. Eliminating the guesswork means there is no version of someone else I need to sort through. Think about it — if I accepted whispered information about someone, I am reducing their worth and the value of our relationship. What a gift it is to live without having to decode the subtext of every interaction.

So, maybe we refrain from assuming for a while. Instead, let’s just ask and start gathering facts. If you’ve developed a story about someone, or accepted one that has been told to you, why not ask the main character of the story, “Hey, I was wondering… Can you help me understand?” While the stories we make up might be compelling, real peace lives in truth.

Lesslee Dort, a Northeast Michigan native, is a writer, thinker, and lifelong explorer of the human experience. Through her essays and guided journals, Lesslee hopes to inspire readers to pause, reflect, and connect with themselves and those around them. Copies of her books are available for purchase at The Alpena News and on Amazon. Reach Lesslee via email – lesslee@regardingthejourney.com. Read her here on the third Thursday of each month.