Not every action was meant for you. Not every decision was made to hurt you. If you were left out, there is a chance that wasn’t by design.

Do me a favor and PAUSE.

Pause for a second and consider the many perspectives or sides to that story. If you know the person and their character wouldn’t do anything like that to you, assume the most likely outcome. If you don’t know the person, assume you do and that they wouldn’t do you like that.

Every assumption you make, you have the power to choose how you view it. Why not assume the positive viewpoint over the negative one? It matters not how it made you feel, there is still a chance they didn’t mean it the way it played out.

Here’s the thing. You won’t know the truth unless you ask them. Unless you approach them in calmness and respect to discuss the situation, you will never know what actually transpired. So why waste time in your feelings about a situation you really don’t know what happened? Why waste the emotions?

I choose the positive over the negative any day. A week ago, I sold a book to my son’s teammate’s grandmother. When she paid me, the money was balled up in her hand. I put it away without checking. Later when I got home and retrieved the folded up cash, I realized it was $3 instead of $19.

Now, I could’ve easily gotten mad and thought she tried to get over on me.

It doesn’t matter that I’d see her again soon. Trust I have folks now owing me for books where they meant to send the money later and never did, even after I sent a friendly reminder. So it could happen. There are some brave and heartless folks out here (and folks that simple forget).

But I knew in my heart that she wouldn’t do that to me so I took the $3 and put it in my wallet and went on about life. I had no plans on asking her of the mistake either. It didn’t matter. In my head, she meant well and maybe thought she paid me correctly.

A couple days later after this happened, my husband called me at work and told me to reach out to Trey’s tutor and let her know that instead of handing her a twenty dollar bill and a five dollar bill, he handed her 2 fives.

Now look at that. Similar situations. It was a simple mistake. Now what if I contacted this lady and accused her of trying to get over on me? This would’ve ruined any future relationship we could continue to build at the ball games. What if the tutor thought my husband tried to get over on her??? See where I’m going with this?

I cleared the mistake with the tutor and guess what? Two days later, after the kids next practice, my husband came home with an envelope with a $20 bill inside and a note that apologized for the mistake and compliments on the book.

Next time…Pause! All it took was a pause to think the situation out and decide to resolve to the positive assumption instead of assuming malice. Everyone isn’t out to get us.

Thanks for you attention. Remember you are your own competition.

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