Assumptions

Assumptions. They’re powerful. You overhear your friends talking shit about you, and you assume your friendships have been a lie. Your parents yell at you for a mistake, and you assume they don’t love you anymore. You see your significant other being a little too friendly with someone else, and you assume they’re cheating on you. Assumptions. They have the power to completely warp the truth. Not like a lie, which can be disproved with little extra information, assumptions are based on the truth. Yes, you did hear your friends talking behind your back. Yes your parents did get angry at you. Yes, your boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/etc did kiss that other person. And that’s what makes them so powerful. When you see only part of the truth, you believe that’s all of the truth there is. You didn’t know that your friends were talking about somebody with the same name as you. You didn’t know that your parents are angry because they know you can do better. You didn’t know that that person your partner kissed was a childhood friend/sibling/family member. You didn’t know, and that’s why you assumed. The power of assumptions can be powerful, destroying the most structurally sound of relationships. Burning the strongest bridges. Salting the richest earth. And when you are told the other part of the truth, you doubt it. It’s convenient that the actual truth is much better than the one you thought up of. It’s convenient that your friends talked about someone with the exact same name as you. It’s convenient that your parents are shouting at you because they want you to do better. It’s convenient that the person who your partner kissed was an ex-boyfriend/close friend/family member/sibling/whatever. Assumptions can completely warp the truth, and make it all seem perfectly rational.

Of course, there’s a flip side to this. Assumptions can be used to leave us in ignorance as well. The screaming next door? Could just be a loud movie. No way is the neighbor drunk and beating his wife again. The loud banging a block away? Could just be some car trouble. Nobody would get shot so close to your house. That kid that just got beat up? He’ll be okay. No way would he choose to take one too many pills, put a rope around his neck, or bring a gun to school. That friend who just went through a tough break up? He’ll be fine. No way would he decide life wasn’t worth living. No way. Assumptions can let us ignore the ugliness of the truth. It can let us see it as we want to see it. See it as we want things to be, or happen. They let us shape the world around us, to let us see it as we wish to see it, and to plead ignorance when we’re ridiculed for how wrong we are. You thought that immigrants were coming here to steal our jobs? Well you didn’t know that they are fleeing hell on earth. You didn’t know that they see our country as the only way to escape an angry drug cartel, a lone shark, prosecution. You didn’t know that if they stayed in their country, they’d be killed for not following the practiced religion. You didn’t know.

So yeah, assumptions are powerful. They’re stronger than lies. Lies can be destroyed by the truth. Assumptions are harder because they’re made from the truth. And they’re just as bad as lies.