251026 antalya
This text is about the law of assumption and examples of how my assumptions affected my life.
Today was a somewhat difficult day at work.
I want to start here: It’s okay. You can make as many mistakes as you want. It’s not the end of the world. You are free to make mistakes. I will do everything I can to help you do your best, but I also allow you to make mistakes. You don’t have to do everything perfectly. You can make mistakes, and I forgive you.
…
When I first came here, I honestly barely got tired at all. But as time went on, my assumptions about work started to change. For example, my friends and I started talking negatively about our supervisor. One day, when nothing had happened that would have given him a reason to be angry with us, he called me over. After that, my friends and I got pretty nervous. We started wondering whether he was going to say something to us or whether there was a problem.
But when we went to see him, he didn’t say anything negative to us. Nothing had gone wrong, and we hadn’t done anything wrong. He had simply wanted to have a brief conversation with us.
This is what I’m realizing: even before anything negative had happened, we already had certain assumptions about him. We had started developing negative thoughts about him and sharing them with each other, even though we hadn’t experienced anything that showed us he would treat us badly.
Something similar happened with our coworkers. When we first arrived here, we had heard certain rumors about some of them. We listened to other coworkers’ negative opinions about them, and I think this led us to develop negative assumptions about those people as well.
I think all of this affects how we perceive our experiences at work. Today, we also started talking negatively about work, our working hours, and things like that. Even though I had moments when I was having fun, I gradually got caught up in that negativity too.
On top of all this, I started feeling anxious about the future. I began thinking about what kind of job I would have in the future and what my life would look like. This stressed me out and distracted me from what I was experiencing in the present. But now I want to remind myself of something: I don’t have to know exactly what kind of job I’m going to have yet.
I know what kind of life I want. I know what I expect from a job, what I want to make room for in my life, and how I want to feel. So what I need to do isn’t decide right now what my future job will be, but trust that I will find a path that aligns with my expectations and the life I want.
I don’t have to know exactly what my future job will be, which path I will take, or how my life will unfold. What matters is knowing the life I want and being able to make choices that bring me closer to it. I don’t have to know how the things I want will come to fruition or what path I will take to get there. I don’t have to constantly think, “I’m going to do this job, I’m going to choose this career, my life is definitely going to look like this.” I know what kind of life I want; I don’t need to know every detail of the path that will take me there.
I’m excited about the future. I feel both stressed and excited because I want what I desire so badly. But, to me, not reaching it is no longer an option. Even if I find myself thinking that I might not reach it, that doesn’t mean it’s actually unattainable. What matters is getting into that mindset and staying there.
Yes, as long as I remain in that mindset, I will achieve what I want. No matter how things may look from the outside, I will keep moving forward on my path. I’ve experienced this many times in my life. Even when things didn’t seem to be going the way I wanted in the moment, I later looked back and realized that I needed to be at that point and that my experiences had brought me to where I am today.
Sometimes, you think you’re on the wrong path. But you don’t even know the path! You decide that it can’t take you where you want to go without even knowing where it leads. But maybe it’s taking you exactly where you want to be. Just because you can’t see the end of the road yet doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong one.
Imagine that you’re on a journey. You have a compass in your hand, and it points you in the direction you want to go. The road ahead might be winding, and it might lead you to places you never expected. Sometimes, you might even think you’ve taken a wrong turn. But just because you can’t see the entire road yet doesn’t mean you don’t know where you’re going.
What I need to do is not try to figure out where every single step will lead me in advance, but remember the direction I want to go in.
What I need to do right now is not consume the present by thinking about the life I will have in the future, but enjoy the life I am living right now.
Because I genuinely want to live a beautiful life. Living life to the fullest, experiencing new things, discovering new things, and being myself are incredibly important to me. Maybe the reason I feel so stressed about my future is that I’m afraid of losing the life I want. I want it so badly that sometimes, while thinking about a life I haven’t even lived yet, I end up missing out on the life I already have.
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But think about it: how sad would it be to lose the present, the life I actually have and get to experience right now, while worrying about not reaching the future I want?
…
Ultimately, today I realized that I had developed some negative assumptions about people, my job, and my future.
What matters to me here is this: becoming aware of my assumptions, questioning them, and changing the ones that no longer serve me.
The way we perceive a situation can affect how we approach it and how we behave. When we interpret things that haven’t even happened yet in a negative way, we can sometimes find ourselves feeling stressed even when there isn’t actually a problem. When we accept what we hear about people without questioning it, we may judge them before getting to know them through our own experiences. And when we focus too much on our worries about the future, we can miss out on the present moment.
Recognizing these things is important to me because I can only question and change the thoughts I become aware of.
…
I did the best I could today, and tomorrow is a new day.
Reminding myself that tomorrow is a new day also made me feel better. Yes, tomorrow is a new day. Today, I’m going to make time for myself and show myself love and care. I’m going to rest, and tomorrow I’ll wake up happy really, really happy. Then I’ll give myself and this place another chance.
I’m also leaving behind the old assumption I became aware of today. I’m no longer allowing my thoughts about this place to control me. I don’t have to reduce this entire experience to a single negative thought. The way today went doesn’t define my entire experience here.
I’m closing the chapter on this assumption here. It’s over.
This has been a very beautiful and valuable experience for me.
If me from the past could come up to me today, hear about the time I spent here, and ask me, “Would you choose to come here again?”, I would say yes without a second thought.
Because it was such a different experience. Taking a new step, experiencing something I had never experienced before, and getting to know myself are all very valuable to me. I would want her to experience these things too, meet new people, grow as a person, and have experiences that would change her perspective on the world.
I would tell her, “Yes, I definitely think you should go. You should experience this.”
I’m also very grateful for the people I met here. I hadn’t met the friends from my university who came here before; even though we attend the same university, we got to know each other here. Meeting them, everything the people I worked with have taught me, and getting to know people from different cultures have genuinely made me happy. I’ve even become close friends with some of them.
I was able to see the good in the people I met here. I was able to recognize the positive sides of the things that happened to me. I connected with different people, learned new things, and opened myself up to an experience I had never known before.
I gained what I could gain from coming here. I got the most out of this experience that I possibly could. Everything didn’t have to be perfect. Not every day had to be wonderful, either. Because when I look back as I leave this place, I know that I’m happy with what I experienced and that I would choose to have this experience again.
And there’s one last thing I want to remind myself of:
I am capable. I have the ability to learn, accomplish, and experience the things I want to do.
