Recently I’ve noticed that I make a lot of assumptions and surprisingly some of them can be very small indeed. I noticed this especially when I saw a street sign; I completely misunderstood its meaning. The sign was for a café and I thought it was indicating an arrow for where to park. I drove along following the arrow and there was little of a car park. There was only room for one car and I think it was owned by the barista. There was little to no space to actually park. I was thinking to myself “how did I get this wrong? Where was I to park?”.

I parked behind the barista not sure what else to do and collected my coffee. I reversed out and as I exited I re-examined the sign. What I thought was an arrow on second thought was possibly part of the art work of the sign for the cafe, or pointing the opposite direction, or perhaps suggesting I park in front of the sign.

The experience made me realise how much we can assume in the little things and that these assumptions can lead us astray.

You might say to me “Mike, but that’s just a sign, it does not really matter, who cares, why might this matter?”. This is where I realised that I make many small assumptions and they can lead to heartache.

That moment where our spouse asks us to do something, but we miss-understood (thinking we knew what they wanted) and a fight started.

In the workplace where we actioned a job to a specification, but we miss-understood (thinking we knew what was required) and the cost to rectify to the correct specification was expensive and profits lost.

Have you discovered these small miss-understandings too?

Did I stop for even a few seconds to re-align my understanding? No. Could the sign have been poorly designed? Yes.

Did you know there is one small thing that we can do, and the anguish will simply vanish?

Reflecting on it the answer seems so simple: ask questions and seek clarity.

 

For those that have been following my health, this is the first post since my neck surgery. It went well and am no longer in chronic pain. Now to get the body the strengthen. Nerves are now healing and feeling coming back. Praise God this day for wonderful specialists and the nature that our bodies can heal.