Assumptions



When I was a little girl, I assumed that I would just wake up one day and be completely grown up.  There were no adolescent years when I pictured my life.  I didn't even think about all the school I would go through.  There was one time when I had been sent to my room for being rude and I remembered thinking, my mom should be grateful for me because I'm going to wake up one day and be all grown up into an adult and then she won't have her baby anymore.  I think it's safe to say that I started assuming things at a very early age.

What exactly makes us assume?  Is it a lack of knowledge on our part about a particular situation that causes us to suddenly become experts?  Or maybe it's because we feel we have to have an answer to everything life throws at us.  The one thing I do know for sure is that life becomes dangerous when I start assuming.

I had always assumed that I would grow up to become a professional figure skater.  I would watch the skating shows on TV and score each performance like I was an actual judge.  But then things changed and I suddenly wanted to be an artist.  I was very sure that I would certainly become an artist and there was no changing professions this time.  Needless to say, thirteen years later I've changed my mind yet again.

At the end of my freshman year in high school, I was choosing my courses for the next year and decided to take physics.  The class description said that it was the most basic of the sciences and was a good foundation class to have for any science background.  I stupidly assumed that the class was going to be easy, or at least of a normal difficulty level.  Yup...I was wrong.  It was one of the hardest classes I've ever taken.

It was my senior year and things weren't going very well socially for me.  I had two best friends and I assumed that they would be able to come together for my birthday party, despite the fact that they hated each other.  I assumed that the bond of friendship was stronger than their dislike for each other.  Needless to say, I was wrong.  Although I ended up losing a friend, it taught me a good lesson about friendships/relationships and I now see how I could've acted differently in the situation.  I am happy to report that my friend and I have recently tried to patch things up and all is going pretty well again.  Wish me luck!

As I stepped into my first class of college, I assumed that I would breeze through the material.  High school chemistry was extremely easy and enjoyable, therefore college chemistry should be the same.  I also assumed that I would be fine by taking Calculus, Chemistry, College Writing, Spanish, and Western Civ. all in one semester, despite my mom's warnings.  And to top everything off, I (once again) assumed that starting college would be like starting over in my life and my problems would suddenly disappear.  I would become more social and outgoing, have tons of friends, ace my classes, and be living the dream life.  Instead, my world came crashing down around me.  Assumptions can hurt.

I started my first full time job a few months ago and was surprised to find that there were a lot of problems within the company.  I had assumed that because it was a well-standing corporation, problems wouldn't exist at all between coworkers, or between the company and its clients.  I quickly learned the hierarchy system which was unofficially set in place, and I discovered that just because a problem exists doesn't mean that someone is going to fix it...even if that's their job.  I also learned that a lot of grown ups are no more than really old children who whine when they don't get their way.

Assumptions have often lured me into false senses of security, and have been the cause of many a night's sorrows.  Personally, I think that I tend to assume because I either don't know something or don't want to know the truth about something.  It's very convenient for me to assume something that is comforting, or something that makes me feel like I know what I'm talking about.  Assumptions have also lead me into lazy thinking.  I'd like to think I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying my best not to assume anything, but I know that I'm only human.  I do know that I can do my best to actively think about situations that occur in my life and take an aggressive role in making my own decisions.  Assumptions can often times be painful, but the lessons they teach can bring beautiful rewards.