Assumptions Snip-Its

By: Duke Rohe  drohe@att.net

Assumptions seem like facts to the suspicious. A suspicious mind is seeking six-point coordinates to justify its chosen path.  It doesn’t know, so it backfills where facts should go.  Sad thing is, a suspicious mind will create negative possibilities and reconcile them into probabilities.  The more it mulls, the more like facts they seem.  The more mental ‘real’ estate they consume.

Assumptions are more or less the truth. If they were the truth, they would be known, stated, validated.  Assumptions are projections on the screen of perception.  It’s our mind’s eye of how things are.  But beware; they may be a mirror image of what our mind wants instead of the way they are.

Assumptions can save or slay.  They can save time by creating a background of obviousness.  They can be a common, trusting, understood, unspoken language that allows a team cooperate efficiently and instinctively.  A basketball team wins on assumptions.  They can also be what the mind amplifies into a fearful, judgmental, fixated picture of what is not known.  So they can be a best friend or a worst enemy depending on how they are used.  Faith relies on assumptions.  It doesn’t allow what is seen to influence what it believes.  It trusts divine inspiration over what circumstance indicates.

Assumptions can say a lot about you.  Words reveal what is on the inside.  And when you speak of the unknown; optimism or pessimism, courageous or cautious, it colors how you look at it.  Words are a reflection of the heart’s assumptions.

Assumptions are a placeholder until the unknown is known.  They are the best picture at the present given the information at hand.  The important thing is to remember that they are a representation of the truth and not necessarily the truth itself.

Assumptions can hide consequences.  When we presume on the future, we do ourselves a disservice.  ‘It won’t hurt anything’ are famous last words of anyone toying with addiction, regardless of its form.  When the connection between cause and effect, between reaping and sowing is buffered by assumptions, we lose sight of the dynamics of life.  Things change.  There is a wake behind decisions and actions that can effect even generations to come.  For the good or for the bad.

So select well.