We all make assumptions about things. Our life can sometimes be a dance of making an assumption and then finding out that what we assumed doesn’t match the reality. We assume that it will rain that day because of the way the weather is in the morning and what the news tells us, then it doesn’t rain. We assume that the soup will be spicy because of the ingredients and then it’s not. We assume that an opportunity will play out a certain way and then it doesn’t. Yadda…yadda…yadda. We think that our assumptions are self-evident and don’t need to be examined or questioned.
Yet there are some big assumptions we make that can throw us off or even prevent us from achieving our best life. One is that our life will drastically change at age 65. That somehow the money stops coming in, we have to stop doing what we love, we have to give up the life we’ve lived, and we go into an enforced state of slow death by vapid hobby. Others are that we need to stick in a job until retirement or we won’t have the ability to retire and poverty looms or that we have to be in a job we loathe in order to support ourselves. Or that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t so better to stay in a loveless marriage than to strive for the unknown possibly disastrous dream we’ve been harboring all our lives.
Well, these assumptions may feel as real and solid as gravity, but they aren’t. They are assumptions. They are meaning that we’ve put together from our experience and from what we’ve been told and from our own imagination powered by the problem solving (even when there isn’t an actual problem) left brain. And most often these assumptions are wrong. Not all assumptions are wrong. Assumptions can be a very good thing and help you navigate through new situations. However, assumptions should be challenged. They are guesses and that’s all. So treat them as such.
Assumptions might be the only thing that’s holding you back from having the life you deserve.