Assumptions

There’s a story about a little kid who keeps shredding paper and his parents take him to all kinds of doctors to get him to stop shredding paper. And finally, they take him to the most expensive doctor in the world.

The doctor turns to the kid and says “kid, if you stop shredding paper, your parents will stop dragging you to doctors.” The kid turns to his parents and says “why didn’t you just say so?”

Sometimes I realize the most rational solution to many of conflicts I have is to just let go of my assumptions and ask for what I just assumed to be true or the case. Sometimes I just take some assumptions as evidence for my conclusions.

What those parents needed to do was to simply ask the kid to stop and that would make the process of ending the paper-shredding much easier. What I do need to do is to take a rest and give a fresh eye to problems and conflicts I have. Some of those for sure have much simpler and easier solutions I haven’t thought of.

Of course sometimes it’s needed to see the most expensive doctor, that’s even needed so we get reminded of the story, but that’s not always the case, I’m pretty sure about that.