Never assume..!

Monday, June 18, 2012 - A few years ago, I found my daughter crying and on asking her the reason she told me her best friend had said something bad about her to somebody else. “Have you asked your best friend whether she really said it?” I asked. “No!” she said. “Never assume anything till you’ve checked it. Ask her,” I said and it was a relived daughter who told me later that the third person had made it up. Joan, the town gossip and supervisor of the town’s morals accused George, a local man, of having a drinking problem because she noticed his pickup truck outside the town’s only bar one morning. After all, she reasoned, it was a logical assumption. George stared at her for a moment and said nothing. Later that evening, he parked his pickup truck in front of her house and left it there all night.

Why is it that so many of our logical assumptions are just plain wrong? And why do we want to act as if they must be true? In an age long before the Internet, a young American at a banquet found himself seated next to the eminent V. K. Wellington Koo, a Chinese diplomat. Completely at a loss as to what to say to someone from such a different culture, this young man ventured, “Likee soupee?” After all, he assumed, don’t all Chinese speak in broken English?

Mr. Koo smiled and nodded. Later when called upon to speak, Wellington Koo delivered an eloquent talk in exquisite English, sat down while the applause was still resounding, turned to the young man and whispered, “Likee speechee? Another assumption that was completely wrong. And I can relate. I regularly assume things and act as if they must be true. Do you know one of the reasons why red roses are so popular? Men keep buying them. They assume that all women prefer red roses when flowers are in order. And when asked their partner’s favorite color of rose, men usually say it’s red. But what do the women say? When women are asked what color of rose is their favorite, they are more likely to answer that they prefer yellow, white, black, peach or lavender. And when asked what kind of flowers they would prefer to receive from that special person, the answer is generally not roses at all. Try daisies, tulips or gardenias. The age-old assumption that most women like red roses best is simply not true. Assumptions. We all make them. They’re too often wrong and can easily get us into trouble. So when in doubt, check it out..!

—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com