September 25, 2025
Article highlights:
- I came
- I assumed
- I faltered, lol
This thought came to me today in my morning musings: “Notice your assumptions.”
I had asked, “What’s a good topic for my readers today?” The answer came: Notice your assumptions.
Ok. That’s an interesting answer. Let’s open it further. Here’s what else came.
Assumptions are a form of story-telling that we often don’t notice, yet they can become very impactful in shaping our lives. Best to notice them in that case, right? Especially because they can quickly solidify and feel like truth to us.
We make assumptions about other people all the time, for instance. We make assumptions about why they said or did something. We then tend to think our assumption is right—and respond to it as though it were truth. But it was only an assumption. We say, “I think they did that because…” and we often deliver it with certitude, as if we really lived in their head.
Our assumptions can cause a lot of harm. Or they can mislead us. Recently, I assumed the car I’d been loaned was fully covered by insurance. I assumed that because I don’t loan my car to someone if they aren’t covered driving it.
That car was plowed into by another car while parked in a parking lot. I was in it, but not really harmed. The car was totaled, however. It turned out the car only had collision insurance that covered the other vehicle.
Luckily, my car was parked, which meant the other driver’s insurance was 100% responsible for coverage. Luckily also, the other driver was insured. Imagine the horror I felt realizing that if they hadn’t been covered, I would have felt responsible for replacing the loaned car—$20,000 worth. I wasn’t at fault, but that doesn’t mean there’s no responsibility.
Imagine having to work that out with a friend. That’s the kind of thing that can get really crunchy, even ruin friendships. As it was, the car will be replaced through insurance, but what a lot of time and stress my friends had to go through to make that happen—all because of my assumption.
It was an important learning for me. It was nearly an assumption disaster. I certainly learned to always ask if a car I’m using is insured for me.
We assume and jump to conclusions a lot; it’s something we do. It shows where we can be more present in our lives, rather than caught up in a story.
Why do we do this? We want answers, right? Even made-up ones are apparently preferable. We want to explain everything. We like to fill in the gaps. We are sort of addicted to this form of story-telling because we prefer certainties. It makes us feel safer when we think we know. We are such wannabe know-it-alls.
When it comes to this type of story-telling, it’s good to remember:
- There’s always more to things than meets the eye.
- Filling in the gaps often means we are not at all accurate but are living a fantasy instead of real life.
- We can resist the need to know everything; it’s a weird compulsion that doesn’t really serve us.
- We can trust things will fall into place as need be. Assumptions and conclusions actually interfere with that happening as easily.
- We’re perfectly capable of finding peace without knowing what’s going to happen.
We are more than a little nutty about this assumption-based story-telling. Starting to pay attention makes that obvious pretty fast, lol. That should make us laugh. Being a human who’s not living the illusion—it’s kind of a tricky thing to do, right?
I’m commiserating on that with you today,
Love,
Mayet
