get us into a lot of trouble – yes? Yes. And yet we all continue to operate this way. Why? Easy answer – because we’re trying to have order in our lives and with as little stress and strain on us as possible. Even the most illogical person needs to be able to rely on certain patterns, tendencies, and ‘characteristics’ that provide a method to interacting. Unfortunately, while assumptions can assist they can also mislead.
There’s a wonderful comment in my favorite Britcom when the actor misquotes by saying, “Assumptions doth make fools of us all.” This is all too true. And while we experience problems when we do assume, and while we sometimes get in a world of hurt when we act on our assumptions… still we continue. It really isn’t a ‘death’ wish, it’s just faster and easier to make and act on assumptions. But what if we didn’t? What would happen to our ‘ordered’ world? Chaos? What would replace assuming? Because we humans really don’t like voids so we fill them as soon as we can regardless of whether the replacement is better or worse.
We humans do tend to dislike and/or not function well outside of the order we create. Order provides meaning and it provides structure and as much as we decry both – we also seek it to provide us with our ‘frame of reference’. And this is not bad… in and of itself. The danger comes when our assumptions are wrong – what do we do with this? One option is to continue regardless of what is happening but this is typically ineffective. Another option is to replace with a new model. Is there a third?
I’m convinced that we need to be more sensitive to change – others as well as our own. You change all the time, perhaps not on the significant issues but you, consciously or not, are continually making little adjustments, tweaks to how you respond to your environment – as do others. The same exists in our interpersonal relationships – we need to be more sensitive to changes in others. Static is not a condition anyone lives in.
