Assumptions

Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle; show good will to all. Cultivate vigor, patience, will, purity; avoid malice and pride. Then, you will achieve your destiny.
~ Krishna, from The Bhagavad Gita

You often hear ‘When you assume, you make an ass of you and me’, but the truth is far more destructive. One of the biggest problem in relationships, for example, comes from assumptions we make. Maybe we assume our partner feels the same way as we do, or we assume that they know the way we like something done, and if they don’t do it that particular way then we assume they either consciously decided not to, or were acting thoughtlessly, and we get hurt emotionally. Perhaps we carry some anger through the day over it, and we assume they notice our mood, and get even angrier because they don’t react to it. Its a spiral of poison that we inflict on ourselves and each other. Assumptions are one of the little soul eaters, one of many injections of poison that make this smokey mirror we call life a little darker, a little more hellish. We make assumptions from a false base, from a paradigm of agreements that were laid out for us by others. While we try, as we should, to shed the template of agreements that have been indoctrinated into us, by teachers, parents, society as a whole, making assumptions can cause many missteps as well. We assume we should be better than we are, we assume our progress should be at a point it is not, which leads us to assume we are failing and in turn causes us to think negatively of ourselves. One of the agreements bred into us is the assumption of perfection. We are taught to strive for perfection at all times, an impossible task. In turn, we feel poorly about ourselves for failing to be perfect. A vicious circle indeed! When we stop assuming, though, much of the negativity is cleared, and coupled with always doing your best can lighten the path for your eventual mental, emotional and physical freedom! When you decide to always do your best, no matter what, at everything you do, there is no room for negative self esteem if you do not achieve perfection, or even success! You can take pride in knowing you always try your best, regardless of circumstance. Some days you will do better than others, there is no hard and fast scale of what your ‘best’ is. Perhaps you feel ill today, or exhausted. But if you are determined to do the best you are capable of it will be just as rewarding as your ‘best’ is on days you are healthy and rested. You will find enormous happiness from these two simple agreements, never making assumptions, and always doing your best at whatever you are doing, because you are eliminating the negative poisons from the equation. And when you discover your true purpose, whatever that may be, you will be prepared to always do it at the best level you are capable of, seeing clearly as the fog we call reality dissipates with each new day.