Why We All Need to Stop Jumping to Conclusions About People

I was dining with a friend the other evening (let’s call her Izzy), when conversation briefly turned to a mutual friend (let’s call her Julia). Izzy expressed a frustration she had with Julia, paraphrased loosely as: I dislike Julia. I ran into her in the corridor the other day, and I smiled warmly at her, but she completely ignored me in front of her friends.

I devoted so much time assisting her in her med school applications, yet now she most likely feels that she is too cool for me and chose to ignore me in front of her crew. What a bitch!

Another instance, this one involving my friend Bella raging about her co-worker Tara. I am so done with Tara. We were all just chillin’ at happy hour the other night, and she was constantly throwing shade with these snarky comments about what I was wearing.

I’m generally okay with a little bit of teasing it’s what we do for humor, right? But Jamie (my crush), was there, and I swear Tara knew that I had a thing for him. She was just trying to make me look bad so she could get his attention.

And a third, from my own experience (because, I’m not perfect either). I dislike Lauren. I was organizing a brunch for our women’s networking group last week, trying to get everyone on board to attend. Lauren, who has attended so many of our functions in the past and always appeared to have an absolute wonderful time, opted to organize a competing mimosa morning at a hip cafe at the very same hour! Whatever I must have done to become so annoying to her, I have no clue!

We all fall into this frame of mind at some point.

We take a breath and create a narrative that portrays us as victim and another person as villain. We lose sight of the fact that the individual we’re annoyed with is human, just like us, and likely acting out of good intentions 99.9% of the time.

We don’t stop to think of all the other possible reasons they’re being “rude.” We instead choose the tale that

(a) makes us feel bad. and/or

(b) makes them the worst possible human being.

We may eye-roll advice such as this, feeling our decades of being “slighted” have granted us some sort of superpower in actually knowing people. We can talk ourselves into believing we belong to a select group that appreciates how horrible others can be, and calling out the worst is simply looking out for oneself.

Even worse, we may eagerly “spill the tea” with our friends (for their own benefit, of course), trying to get affirmation that so-and-so is “the worst” and “she’s like that with everyone.”

By doing this, however, we cultivate bitterness that corrupts our hearts. We gossip, ruin a person’s reputation, and why? A temporary moment of releasing frustration over probably an innocent second our minds have manipulated into something bad?

Even if we do not express our frustration, it does nothing but create negativity and negative energy in our lives. As the Buddha is usually wrongly quoted as saying: “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”.

What can we do instead?

The next time we are annoyed or wounded by someone’s behavior, let’s take a moment to breathe. Our fury is based on the narrative that we’re crafting about what transpired, rather than the experience itself. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and look for some other explanation of their behavior ones that don’t cast them as the villain and us as the hapless victim.

If we all did this a little more, the world could be just a little softer, a little kinder. We wouldn’t think that someone ignoring our smile indicates she thinks she’s too cool for me when she was distracted is a lot more likely.

We wouldn’t blame our coworker for ruining our crush when we’ve never even hinted at our hearts. And we wouldn’t take she likes mimosas better than brunch as she’s out to sabotage my event.

Hamdun al-Qassar, another of the great early Muslims, explained: “If a friend among your friends makes a mistake, excuse them seventy times. If your hearts cannot manage this, then take it as a failing in yourselves”.

Now, whenever I catch myself gossiping about someone, I try to recall this quotation. I challenge myself to come up with 70 excuses for their behavior, but in all seriousness, I usually only need two or three before I see there’s a kinder way to look at things.

I put myself in their shoes and think that I’d have probably done the same thing for completely harmless reasons. I rely on a modified form of Hanlon’s Razor, a principle which I adore: Never assume malice where you can explain the behavior by distraction, misunderstanding, or being too busy.

My view of this has been extensively influenced by Derren Brown’s outstanding book Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine. He gets into this subject, going over how we all “build on first impressions,” fabricating stories making us as bad as we can be, with rich, real-life illustrations (much better than mine!).

I won’t be able to recommend this book highly enough to anyone interested in being happier. And if you’re someone who dismisses “self-help” books, you’re likely the one who would benefit most from it.

Alain de Botton (an absolute gem) also has a great book, The Course of Love. It tracks a love relationship between a man and a woman, from their first spark to years into their marriage. Whenever there’s tension between them, Alain jumps in with commentary, explaining the reasons they do what they do and how much suffering arises from easy misunderstandings. He emphasizes the strength of working things out in relationships.

As Cheesy as it may be, it’s a great read, and if you’re in a relationship or even just contemplating one you’ll find it “thought-provoking”.