21/05/2026
THE DAMAGING POWER OF ASSUMPTIONS
(NOT AI written!)
There is a wise old adage that reads: “Assuming is the mother of all screw-ups” (polite language substituted!).
For sound reasons, it often proves true. Viewing something based on face value and forming opinions and judgements, “assuming” to know what is going on for someone or a situation based on scant evidence can destroy opportunities, relationships, friendships and even peace of mind.
It can take some integrity, discernment, self-honesty, courage, emotional maturity and curiosity to dig deeper and find the facts to a situation that can often reveal a whole different reality, or at least an expanded perspective than what was assumed.
A Spiritual mentor I worked with for many years frequently reminded: “Facts keep the confusion away, Confusion keeps the facts away”. Likewise Intuition can often indicate the need for deeper inquiry, rather than irrefutable truth.
Fact-checking by asking questions and engaging in dialogue in search of truth and understanding can create far healthier outcomes and decisions than jumping to conclusions, without necessarily surrendering one’s truth. It is a communication and life-skill that might take some conscious intention and effort to develop, but the results can be deeply rewarding.
It’s sometimes said that the most difficult conversations are the ones that most need to be had, and can also be the most healing.
I’ve done it often through life - made an assumption, judgement or opinion based on hearsay, something seen or common opinion, only to experience self-remorse at later finding a very different or deeper reality. Even if not evident, the energy generated can be hurtful to someone.
Other adages I’ve found worth remembering can hold weight in many situations: “There is often more than one side to a story” and “you never know what’s going on for someone beneath the outer impression”.
It doesn’t take much to observe that the energy of “assumption”, often causing conflict, is rife in the modern world, at a societal level as well as personal.
On a cultural level a classic example is the increasing prevalence of ideologically-biased academia with its own agendas feeding distorted “research” to government bureaucracies and the media, which assumes it to be true and publishes without question or further inquiry. Many, even well-intentioned people, read the dramatic headlines also assuming it to be valid and it becomes ingrained publicly as an “accepted narrative”.
There is a tendency for some researchers to release “unpublished” studies based on their personal political ideologies to a media and journalists hungry for sensation and headlines in a declining industry. “Unpublished” is a way of avoiding the scrutiny of peer review, which in academic rigor assesses the work for balance and accurate research.
In some disturbing cases “unpublished studies” or “reports” weighted towards specific results are also finding their way into informing government policy and social engineering initiatives.
Many good media journalists still have the professional nous to question, but others, “assuming” the information to be valid simply because it has come from someone based at a university, NGO service or government bureaucracy, can lack the simple due diligence to background check the source’s research history, ideological biases, political leanings, methodology and sampling used.
That used to be a standard professional duty of care and integrity in the old-school of journalism I was trained in. It becomes easy to see when that is missing.
In some cases the methodology and sampling used to claim “new research” would not pass the grade in a first-year uni assignment. Yet it is “assumed” to be valid by a largely unquestioning media, whose headlines are in turn ”assumed” to be undeniable truth by time-poor readers unskilled in doing their own fact-checking.
Court trials in the judicial system are key checks and balances in ascertaining truth by hearing (mostly) from all sides, yet in increasingly prevalent cases “trial by media” and emotive, public hysteria and discussion takes precedence with the assumption “everyone knows it’s true!”
The notion of “guilty … even unless proven innocent” is an insinuated assumption that increasingly undermines the media’s purported claims of fairness, balance and representation of all viewpoints.
There is a caution also. Some people become so attached to an assumed rightness, that ”fact checking” becomes more an exercise in finding evidence to validate and support a viewpoint, while ignoring what does not.
I’ve seen it often where someone who is the victim of a false accusation based on blind assumption, has been shut down and dismissed as “gaslighting” for trying to speak their truth or add their viewpoint. In effect they become the one being gaslit.
Anyone who has been falsely accused of something might likely know the soul-crushing place of attempting to defend against a wall of denial based on assumptions adopted as “proof”.
Perhaps along with honest self-inquiry, if ever there were skills much needed in common culture, it is those of mutual active listening to understand, engaging in honest dialogue and a preparedness to entertain broader viewpoints than one’s own.
In many circles, these are often cited as the basis for learning and conscious growth.
- Paul
