Time to revisit The Four Agreements. This time, we’re looking at the third agreement: “Don’t Make Assumptions”. Don Miguel Ruiz talks about how easy it is to make assumptions and how real they appear to be, even when they’re completely wrong. While stuck within the fantasy created by a negative assumption, the temptation to react negatively toward whatever person it’s directed at can be overwhelming. Naturally, this often leads to nothing but trouble.
Along with taking things personally, this is one of the most difficult agreements for me to follow. Before I learned about presence and became decent a practicing it, my mind would nearly always run at top speed while imagining all sorts of possibilities for any situation. This helped with my writing and coming up with ideas, but it also facilitated assumptions, often negative ones. I can’t recall how many times I said or did something based on an assumption only to be racked with guilt as soon as I learned the truth. Even at this point in my life, I still find myself making assumptions and jumping to conclusions more than I’d like. Sometimes this causes no real trouble, but other times it ends badly.
Something Ruiz suggests to avoid making assumptions is to simply ask questions. I started doing this even before I read The Four Agreements as I found it useful to avoid trouble. If I ask someone where they’re coming from rather than assuming I already know, I can avoid putting my foot in my mouth and bringing tension into the situation. Also, I appreciate whenever someone asks questions about me or something I enjoy instead of jumping to conclusions, so I try to do this with other people to avoid hypocrisy. Something else that helps me is remembering past situations in which I’ve made assumptions and how they often ended badly; wanting to learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them tends to keep me on the right track. As long as I keep this agreement and the life hacks that help me follow it in mind, I’m confident that I can gradually eliminate the bad habit of making assumptions and enjoy all the benefits that doing so will bring into my life.