The Assumption Gap

Try this.

Send someone the message, "Can we talk later?" and say nothing else.

Notice how many different stories that one sentence creates.

Some people would assume everything is fine. Others would immediately wonder if they've done something wrong.

The message hasn't changed, the story has.

Our minds do something similar. Except instead of changing words, they fill in missing information.

For example:

• A friend replies with, "Can we talk later?"

→ "I've done something wrong."

• Your manager says, "Can you come by my office?"

→ "This can't be good."

• Someone you've been texting suddenly goes quiet.

→ "They're not interested anymore."

The interesting part is that we rarely notice we're making assumptions.

We experience them as facts.

Experts call this catastrophising - the tendency to predict the worst possible outcome when we don't have all the information.

It's not because we're negative people.

It's because our brains are prediction machines.

When information is incomplete, the brain tries to close the gap as quickly as possible. And because our brains are wired to detect potential threats, they often favour the worst-case explanation over the most likely one.

The next time your mind starts finishing someone else's sentence or writing the ending to a story that hasn't happened yet, pause and ask yourself:

"Do I know this…or has my brain simply filled in the blanks?"

Sometimes the most stressful part of a situation isn't what actually happened.

It's the version our minds created before the facts arrived.