Many of our relationships rely on the stories we tell ourselves about the one percent of factual information we actually know about the other person. For instance, you might really know only four facts about your boss: she’s my boss, a single mother, and only takes fifteen minutes for lunch every day.
From that scant information—likely even less than one percent of how many facts actually describer her—you’ll extrapolate a dizzying number of assumptions about her: she must work so hard because her ex-husband doesn’t pay child support. Maybe she works so hard because she feels she has to prove herself to her ex, or to us. Maybe I need to work harder to make sure I still have a job. The list could go on.
We all do this. Some of us are more aware than others how often we create these kinds of stories about other people, but it’s a natural human inclination. As I’ve quoted before, nature loves a vacuum. For our minds and our relationships, we want to fill in the blanks that we don’t know, so we use scant facts to help us form beliefs about the people in our lives. Sometimes this beliefs turn out to be true, but all too often they’re false and they lead to stressful relationships.
So how do we fight against this impulse to judge people based on so little actual information?
Realize that we’re all icebergs with unexplored and unknown depths hiding just beneath the surface. You see the one percent, but there’s so much more to know.
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