A no show

Tonight I fixed dinner for my neighbors kids (teenagers) who are home alone but they didn't show up for dinner and didn't call to say they were not coming :(so you might be thinking how rude but the truth is that I only assumed that they would want to come eat dinner with us and not go out to get a hamburger with their friends. Silly me. A post by Amy the other day reminded me of this very thing. She wrote:  

Before you “assume”, try this crazy method called asking.”

Wow….that is a powerful quote.  When I first read it, it really hit me.  It is so true!  So often in life we just assume we know…we assume we know what someone thinks, we assume they did something just because someone else said they did, we assume someone doesn’t care about us, we assume someone is wrong, and the list of assumptions goes on and on….

So why don’t we just ASK more?  Why don’t we just stop ourselves from passing judgment until AFTER we have simply asked the person to tell us themselves?  I have wondered about that a lot.  I think some of the reasons we don’t just ask might be PRIDE, or EMBARASSMENT, or SHAME, or FEAR, or OUR OWN NEGATIVE ATTITUDE.  At least when I think about the times I didn’t just ask someone directly those are probably the reasons that might have stopped me in the past…sad, but probably true.  I can’t think of a positive reason why I would ask someone, only stupid selfish reasons and none of them are reasons I would feel proud to have.  So what does that say?  It says we should ALWAYS ASK BEFORE WE ASSUME.

If all of us would do that, ask before assume, can you imagine how many less hurt feelings there would be in this world? How many misunderstandings would disappear?  How many more friendships would last?  How many new friendships might form? How many marriages would survive and be stronger?  How many relationships would be happier? How many families would be closer?  How many workplace politics could go away?  No question the world would be a much happier place.

So that is today’s challenge for all of us – Before we assume, try the crazy method called asking….and see how much happier your life becomes as a result.

Have an incredible day!
~Amy

I assumed they would love to visit with us so I just called and said, if you feel like having dinner with us, make sure you come tonight around 6:30 pm it was an open invitation if they felt like it but nothing, the boys didn't come and is because I should  have asked would you like to have dinner tonight with us, and I am sure the answer would have been no thanks!