Every Guess Takes Us Away From The Truth

A young girl held two apples in her hand. Her mother approached her and asked her if she could give her one of her apples. 

Surreptitiously, the young girl bit into one of the apples, then the other. Her mother’s smile faded, even though she tried not to show her disappointment.

A moment elapsed, then the child gave one of his two apples to his mother, saying to her: “Here mom, take this one, it’s the sweeter of the two.” 

This little story perfectly illustrates the consequences of the baseless assumptions we all make on a daily basis.

This reflex can lead us to judge a child who, with great innocence and undeniable goodwill, tries to convey her intentions in the most adorable way possible.

Often what we perceive is not reality. In fact, our experience and knowledge do not matter.

We should not be judgmental, and we should always offer others the opportunity to provide an explanation for their actions.

Rushed conclusions hurt us

Prejudging the situations that present themselves to us and the behavior of those around us carries a major risk: disappointment.

It is an absolute truth of existence: whoever expects something is inevitably disappointed. However, we feed ourselves day after day with expectations and we cannot escape our expectations.

In this sense, the fact of drawing hasty conclusions can cause some isolated errors of judgment, but can also generate real catastrophes in our personal relationships.

It is this truth that denounces the proverb “to make a mountain out of a molehill “. 

Getting to such extremes depends of course on our degree of involvement in a given situation, but above all on our emotional state. Our feelings often prevent us from seeing the evidence that stands against our blind judgment.

As we know this can happen, it is important to dedicate a moment from time to time to take a step back from our problems.

We must also learn to always question the information we have, which will allow us to have a sharper point of view on the situation that we need to analyze.

The value of the excuse

When we are wrong, we are often proud and unfair to others.

We find it difficult to recognize that our attitude was not the right one, and that it was brought about by prejudices and misperception.

This can cause a personal relationship to end, but it can also fuel our prediction until it is self-fulfilling.

In our little introductory tale, if the mother got angry with the little girl and punished her, the latter would surely have reacted badly and would have refused to give one of her apples to her mother.

Obviously, this behavior could have innumerable explanations: the little girl could have become angry, blocked or felt saddened by this erroneous judgment of her mother. The reality we perceive is personal, and often very different from that of others.

When we judge others negatively, and express it, we can block any willingness to respond or explain on the part of those affected.

Either way, the most serious direct consequence of this behavior is not that it causes it to self-realize, but that it prevents us from realizing our mistake and apologizing.

We are sometimes so proud and embittered that we fall into the trap of resentment.

How many times have we thought about apologizing to certain people without having done so? How many times have we waited for an apology and an explanation from someone who had hurt us?

It is obvious that we all have situations like this in mind. It therefore appears that many things are missing out on us when we let ourselves be blinded by our assumptions.

The triumph of our pride is in reality a great defeat for our whole being.

If we want to, we can build a totally parallel world for ourselves, on the fringes of reality, but this is really not desirable.

It is clear that we cannot always avoid judging others and making false assumptions.

However, we must try to be fair and do good, behaviors that will give us a feeling of well-being and enrich us.