“The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz – the 3rd agreement.
According to don Miguel Ruiz “assumptions are nothing more than lies that we are telling ourselves”. Every time you make assumption you create a drama in your head, a drama that has nothing to do with the reality.
Do you remember the evening your daughter was late from a party? You had a worse case scenario in your head immediately. After 15 min of waiting you started calling 911 when she came through the door. That was an assumption that created a real drama in your head. That’s what we do all the time. We know it! Immediately! And we ran with it no matter how ridiculous the assumption is. We do not ask what really happened; we do not have to, we know! Or, we assume we know.
I have heard a very powerful story once. I do not remember the author of the story, but I remember the story well. Here it is:
“ I rode a metro in New York one quiet evening when a young man with a couple of little kids came on. He sat and looked through the window, while his kids were running around, screaming, hitting people.. They behaved horrible! The man didn’t react, didn’t try to make them stop. People were really annoyed, and so were I. What a nightmarish family, I thought. How is it possible to raise the kids this way? How can they be so insensitive and callous? What is wrong with this guy? Is he deaf or just plain stupid!? At some point I had enough. I sat next to the man and asked him: why don’t you do something with your kids? Don’t you see that they are disturbing everyone? The man looked at me in dismay. I am sorry he said. We are coming from the hospital where their mother just passed away. They are in shock and they are trying to cope with it the best they can. I am sorry; I am numb and I just don’t know what to do with them…
I have never felt as horrible in my entire life! I apologized to the man and left the train at the next station.”
This is what I have learned from this story:
never ever assume that you know what is going on in somebody’s life
what you see as obvious and immediately jump into a judgement, is not always obvious
be curious rather than make assumptions
you know nothing about what is happening inside somebody’s head and somebody’s heart
I try to remember what I have learned when I am eager to make an assumption about somebody or something. It has saved me from trouble a few times.
By Eva Sadowski
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