assumptions
assumptions aren’t always loud. they often arrive in disguise— as logic, as memory, as “just being cautious.” but behind the mask, they’re fear with better posture. they don’t warn you of danger. they convince you to never leave the trench, to implode from an onslaught of self-sabotage with limited visibility. born from the soils of past, assumptions sedate us— mid-fight, mid-flight, extrapolating that our "known" discomfort is safer than unknown possibility. they don’t kill curiosity. they starve it. slowly. like a dam halting the river— protecting you from a flood that may never come. and when curiosity goes infertile, you stop asking questions. you stop acting. you stop dissolving the old stories that no longer serves the shape you’ve become. when we lean on assumptions, we shift from being into bracing. we start calculating from what’s been, not from what could be. we build sandcastles from conclusions, and call them safety. our assumptions keep us on the familiar trail– distancing us from a desire, a new path, a person, an experiment– aiming to prove ourselves right for not trying. they make the room smaller, then tell us it’s the only room that exists. they trade wonder for walls. marvel for a map. mystery for a mirror. and just in case you justify them with: “but what if I assume, take the risk… and i end up being right?” then i ask— does that voice sound brave, or scared? fear never fights fair. it pulls you off the path– in a symphony of i cants, we cants, you cants, it cant– before you’ve even stepped on it. it projects, to protect. but protection from what, exactly? a moment of rejection? a little wasted time? you’ll be fine. and you won’t leave empty-handed. you’ll gain shape. and that new shape will fit spaces you couldn’t see before. assumptions limit the size of your universe. because the size of your universe isn’t just what you know— it’s also what you’re willing to live without knowing. to grow, to explore, to live— let curiosity outpace certainty. let wonder pull you into motion before conclusion stops you in place. assumptions are the box. curiosity is the crack in the lid. pull it open. step through. and don’t look back unless it’s to laugh at how small the room once was.
assumptions.
they’re not all bad–they can provide a helpful scaffold to create momentum and reference against a prediction (so long as you revise them). i find that to be most useful in business. still–they can starve innovation or risk.
in other contexts, it’s likely you’ve either been the assumer or the assumed. how can we not? we are human.
next time you’re standing in the shoes of the assumer, try to remember that time and that feeling when you were the assumed (from the angle of yourself or someone else)––is it a fair fight?