Dr. Livingstone, I Presume!

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume", is one of the famous greeting quote, I have read in my school non-detail essay. While it sounds interesting to read, I don’t think it works well in real life. Let me say, why.

 

In one of the club meetings, of a social organisation in which I am a member of, I happened to meet an elderly gentleman, who must be around 60 years of age. He came to the meeting along with a 10 year old boy.  I thought he was his grandson and in a casual conversation, asked him, “Is this yourgrandson?” He looked embarrassed for a moment and then said, “No Sir, he is my son”.  I was perplexed. Later, I came to know from another friend, this person’s story. He said that, his first wife passed away and he got married again at a late age and this was the child, born through his second wife. I then felt bad for having made such a wrong presumption and having asked an embarrassing question.

 

I am sure this is not uncommon. Many of you might have come across situations like this. Let’s say you see a young man and a lady in a two wheeler, you could presume that they are a married couple or lovers. But it could also be that they are brother and sister, cousins, work place colleagues or just friends. But we come to an immediate judgement without giving much thought or thinking of the various other possibilities.

 It helps to be mindful of all this before we make a presumption. There is a saying, “When in doubt, clarify”.  Yet, we should learn to ascertain the facts, in a tactful way, so that it doesn’t hurt or embarrass someone. For instance, let us say in asocial gathering, you meet a man and a lady together, instead of asking them “Is this your spouse?” you can introduce yourself first and wait for them to introduce themselves. Even then if you don’t get an answer, it is fine. Why should we be too curious to know, what relationship they share?

 In a world where relationships are evolving,we need to get rid of the stereotyping. We cannot judge a relationship, by the intimacy that people share. Today, people post a lot of their personal pics, such as get together, vacations, social functions etc on social media and it doesn’t make sense to ascertain, what is the relationship between the different people in the picture?. Quite often, such judgements can be wrong.

 

So, I was asking myself, “Why do we presume?” and “How do we form presumptions?”

 

Presumption is similar to predicting, which means our mind works based on probabilities. We form presumptions based on our past experiences, our perceptions, our prejudices, our psychological conditioning and the way we understand things. So, it is clear that it can be flawed. People think presumption is clever guessing. Like, if I presume something and it happens to be true, then I can pat myself on my back, and say, “Didn’t I tell you?” But, what if we go wrong? We can appear equally stupid. Isn’t it?

 

So, when we very well know, that there is a probability of being wrong, why do we presume?

Presumptions can create unwanted misunderstandings and can affect relationships. When we tend to think that we know more about someone, than they actually know about themselves, then we are starting to get into the presumption trap and it has to be consciously avoided.

 

Make sure you don’t let these presumptions work against you or your relationships.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

  Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

  Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

  Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com