Assumptions! Assumptions! Ridiculous Assumptions!

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Making assumptions about people, an event or a situation often proves to leave you with embarrassing results. In fact, the results can be tragic or comical at times. Take for example this story I came across in the John Maxwell book- Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. It’s a comical story of a traveler between flights at an airport.

She went to a lounge and bought a small pack of cookies and then sat down to read a newspaper. She became aware of a rustling noise and looked to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to the cookies. She didn’t want to make a scene, so she leaned over and took a cookie herself, hoping that he would get the message. As time passed, she thought she had been successful. But then she heard more rustling. She couldn’t believe it. He was helping himself to another cookie.

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There was only one cookie left. While she watched in disbelief, the man broke the remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, popped the other half in his mouth, and left. The traveler was still furious some time later when her flight was announced. When she opened her handbag to get her ticket, imagine how shocked and embarrassed she was when she looked there and found her pack of unopened cookies!

Many times in life, we are like the woman in this story. I for one know I have made the mistake of assuming many times. In fact, an episode of such almost cost me my pass credit in school. In the 2011/2012 school session, while I was in my 2^nd year in the university, I was faced with an examination in a course, Introduction to Statistics. As the name implies, we had to do a bit of calculation in the course. Take note that since my Secondary School Leaving Certificate exams, I had not done any form of calculation in any course. It was all words and no math. I liked it like that. I hated Math, like most other people. So, when it was time to write this exam, there was no form of excitement in me whatsoever. I just wanted to write the paper and get it over with. This unmotivated state of mine ensured my near failure experience. While writing the exam, I estimated a lot of figures that were supposed to be left as they were- in certain decimal details. I didn’t read the instructions to the first question. This question was 30 marks. I went right ahead to do what I felt was right and paid dearly for it. Thank God I had manageable test scores in the course so I narrowly escaped failing it. I got a D- slim one.

The point of all these is that it’s never nice to make assumptions about something. Imagine how it feels when your boss at the office keeps calling your Lydia, because he never thought to actually find out that your name is really Linda. Or when your parents try to buy you stuff as a surprise but you end up hating it and disrespecting them because they only assumed you would like what they bought, they didn’t make efforts (no matter how subtly) to find out. There are several other situations and examples I could lay down, but I’m sure you get the gist (see, I just made an assumption; annoying, ain’t it?). It’s Jerry Ballard that once said that “all miscommunication are the result of differing assumptions”. Would you believe that I made an error while typing in that quote because I assumed I already knew it?! I first typed “all miscommunications is as a result of different assumptions”. Just imagine how ridiculous that sounds. It’s never fine when people assume things about you, so why assume things about others too? Remember, do unto others as you would have them do to you.