Misunderstanding

It seems that this world has become a huge debacle of assumptions, presumptions, and misunderstandings. People seem to assume that you are this, or presume that you do that, or misunderstand what you just said. I am not saying that people are becoming more complicated, or that society has become less intelligent. It just appears that people more and more are less likely to see a situation through someone else's eyes, and only focus on their own point of view.

Being able to see a situation from someone else's point of view can make a completely complicated situation become simple. The only hard thing about it is that the person has to actually try to see the situation from that person's point of view. Unfortunately it all comes down to interpretation. Did the police officer fire at the suspect because the suspect was a minority, or did the police officer fear for his life and knew that the suspect was a known gang member and just reacted on instinct not thinking. However, I must admit that every situation is different. There is an obvious difference between reacting and over-reacting.

The point of the matter is that people need to take a step back from whatever perspective they had, and try to see the situation through the other's eye's. To many times I have heard and seen over-reactions because the person assumed one thing, and did not take the time to take the other person's perspective into play. For example, no that driver did not just cut you off, they are just in a hurry, and were not paying attention. No, that does not make what they did right, but that does not give you the right to create road rage, or follow them five miles to scold them. Some things just are not worth the time. People have to start creating priorities.

Situations are never one sided. There is never one correct, or incorrect, perspective. All the points of view must be taken into account, otherwise miscommunication and assumptions can occur. There is an old saying, when one assumes he makes an ass out of you and me. So, next time do not assume and take all the available information into account.