Dear LPG,

I came across a video or two on YouTube recently which reminded me about a New Year’s resolution that I have been trying to keep since the turn of the century.  I am not always successful and I am still attempting to get it right, but I have recently found out that I am obviously not the only person who has come to the conclusion because, although I don’t really read much, the videos I have recently found throw up the fact that there is at least one book written which has dedicated a complete chapter to this very idea.

I can think of lots of little instances where I have got it wrong and that can illustrate the point I want to make today, and I am sure that nearly every other LPG website reader has their experience of getting this one wrong. 

The thing that so many of us do all too often is jump to conclusions that result in bad feeling and rifts between friends and members of family, and all because we assume that we know the circumstances of every occasion.

I would just like to remind readers of how important it is to ask questions before making assumptions about the things that others do and how their actions have affected you; the day that your friend arrives four hours late to find the dinner that you prepared so meticulously spoiled beyond recognition; the driver that drove dangerously close to your car on the motorway; the grandchild that was told not to touch the vase but managed to knock it over all the same.

Human nature forces us to assume that these people just had to be deliberately making life hard for us without ever considering that perhaps the dinner guest may have fallen on the way and ended up at A&E; that the driver’s wife may have just gone into labour and he was on the way to the hospital; or that even, with the best will in the world little ones, have a habit of experimenting just when you, as well as their parents, look away. 

There is also the thinking needed to address the other side of this coin.  I feel this to be the need for a degree of tolerance and patience on the side of the person whose motive may have been misconstrued even though their minds may be clouded by the problem that cause the whole misunderstanding in the first place.

Perhaps I am writing this to remind me, more than any other reader, of the value of asking questions before making any kind of assumption. We all need to remember how quickly one wrong assumption can impact on the lives of so many. 

OC, Lee

OC offered us the videos that inspired the writing of this post…

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…and a synopsis of the book that inspired the videos…

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