Assumptions both keep us alive and lead to our demise.
When we board a jet plane to go on vacation, we do well to assume
we’ll arrive safely. If we are afraid the jet will crash, we suffer from anxiety.
When we cross the street in the walkway with the light, we naturally
assume we will get to the other side. And chances are in our favor that we will.
What is an assumption? An assumption is something that we accept as true or as certain to happen without proof. Assumptions are ubiquitous. We can’t avoid making
hundreds of them every day!
Some work out well; some are disastrous. When an assumption increases
anxiety, we do well to explore its underpinnings. On the other hand, when
an assumption decreases anxiety it is helping us function. For example,
in this difficult time of the pandemic, assuming that we will emerge
from it with greater knowledge of viral diseases, can help to decrease
anxiety.
Dynamics of Assumptions
More than 40 years ago, my first psychoanalyst taught me about assumptions
presumably in response to an unhelpful assumption that I’d introduced. He related a
graphic “lawnmower story,” as follows:
A man wants to borrow his neighbor’s lawn mower and heads across the lawn to his neighbor’s house several blocks away. During his walk he assumes that the neighbor most likely will veto his request. He repeats the negative scenario in his head over and over again. By the time he arrives at his neighbor’s door, he’s in a rage. When the neighbor opens the door, he punches him in the face. “You can keep your darn lawn mower anyway,” he says leaving the baffled man with a black eye.
The wallop of this message demonstrates the power of assumptions.
Sorting out what goes on in our heads as opposed to what is happening in the world outside ourselves is a never-ending conundrum. Those who are accurate most of the time, function better in life.
Take, for instance, the event that served as the inspiration for this blog. During a Sunday breakfast of lox and bagels, my partner began reviewing the bill from our Saturday evening’s dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. Before he even glanced at the bill, he remarked that it had cost him over $200! I was immediately taken aback. First of all, I thought he was off the mark by $20-$30. Second of all, I I felt insulted because I assumed that he resented paying for our dinner and perhaps expected me to pay or share the bill.
He claimed he didn’t mean what I assumed. He simply wanted to know what he’d paid for dinner. Then he raised a question: Did I prefer that he review the bill at the restaurant before plunking down his credit card?
“Of course,” I answered. “Then you’d catch an error if there were one.”
But he objected, “I assumed that doing so would be impolite.”
“No,” I assured him_“that wasn’t my understanding at all.”
Both of us had made assumptions based on our past experiences. Taking responsibility for our mis-assumptions had a positive outcome that advanced our relationship and benefitted our pocketbooks. The next time we dined out, he reviewed the tab and found that he’d been charged for two bottles of wine instead of one. As a result, he saved $50.
We are locked inside the realm of our own experience so can’t help but
to make assumptions on the basis of our past experience. But circumstances
are constantly changing! Therefore, it is inevitable that we’ll encounter
instances in which the past impinges on the present to cause problems.
Books could be written about the occurrence of assumptions and mis-assumptions—those that have paid off and those that have fizzled-throughout the course of history, literature and science—as well as throughout our personal lives. But I’ll limit this blog to everyday assumptions with a slant toward the psychological.
A negative assumption can put us in a bad mood and a positive assumption can lift our
spirits. But we learn from both the negative and the positive ones.
Tragically an assumption turned negative in January 2022 for a 15-year-old girl killed by a school bus in the Bronx when crossing with the light in the walkway. (To make matters worse, instead of coming to her aid, the bus driver drove away, unaware that he’d struck and killed a human being.)
From this tragedy, we can take away the concept of caution. This positive strategy can help us reset our anxious thinking to cautious action.
Patterns of our assumptions are often identified in psychotherapy. For example, a patient I’ll call Mr. Q. assumed that his friends should give him more attention. He didn’t realize that his demands of them drove them away. Identifying the pattern allowed him step to outside his needs and to see people apart from himself. Paradoxically, when he demanded less, he received more from others.
Conclusion: The exploration of our personal assumptions gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves, our intricate psychological make-up, and the world in which we live, in both the present and the past.
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