Assumptions Aren’t Facts
My teen daughter asked me to pick her up at an event outside the city. Dutifully, I arrived on time and texted her to say I was waiting. Then I waited. And waited. It was unlike her not to text me to say she’d be late, but well, you know, teens and their friends… Still, as the minutes wore on, I got irritated. I did have other things to do.
Finally, she showed up. I was about to snap at her when she told me there was no cell service there. She hadn’t gotten my text. She’d been waiting for me, thinking I was late.
Here I was, getting angry based solely on my assumptions. I knew she was responsible and still I assumed she’d been at fault.
We do it all the time in our writing. We assume. We assume our writing isn’t good enough. Or the literary agents don’t like our work, or readers don’t care. We assume all sorts of reasons why people do what they do. But we may be wrong. We may use confirmation bias—because we think they may not like our writing, then that must be why they haven’t responded the way we’d hoped. But that doesn’t make it true.
Remember that, the next time you assume. Take a step back. Ask yourself if there could be another reason. It’s not only worth giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, it does wonder for your own confidence, too.