Mis-direction

The water that our staff found on the kitchen floor the morning after the storm was quite obviously from the rain that had pooled up and had come in under the door. They mopped it up, pulled the mat out to dry, and talked once more about the drainage problem at the entrance.

When water was standing again the next morning, after a dry night, the assumptions the staff members made had obviously been wrong. They looked more closely and saw a big water stain on the side of the cabinet next to the dishwasher…and once that appliance was pulled out, a slow leak was found that only required a half-turn to stop. Their attention had been misdirected because of the storm.

Last week our great-grandson began to run a fever, off and on. By the third day it had broken, and a new tooth had appeared on his bottom right gum! We put it down to teething troubles…until the next afternoon, when we took off his shirt and found a red rash across his back. The next morning it was all over him; with the help of WebMD, our diagnosis was roseola, a virus that babies contract that results in a body rash after a fever. We were misdirected by the new tooth.

I mention these two examples because of the tendency we have as human beings to jump to conclusions. Many times, that wrong conclusion is because we have put two and two together and made three! These two things have made me more aware of my need to think more carefully and consider things more broadly before I come to a conclusion.

When we have a conflict with someone, whether it’s an open disagreement or quiet resentment over something they’ve done, quite often, if we retrace the path of its escalation, we can find the moment where we jumped to a conclusion, or were misdirected by the seeming congruence of factors. Giving the benefit of the doubt, instead of thinking the worst, might be a skill we can resolve to work on this week. 

As Voltaire once said, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”

Gaye Ortiz

September 9 2015