The Danger of Assumptions
We spend our lives making assumptions. Small ones, large ones, ones we barely notice as they slip into our thinking. Most of the time they’re harmless shortcuts, ways to navigate a complicated world without having to verify every single detail. But sometimes an assumption isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous. And what troubles me most is how rarely we pause to question them.
I was reminded of this recently when my brother noticed a powerline dangling low across the street. It had apparently been in a dodgy state for years, but that day, with stronger winds, it sagged to just a couple of metres above the ground. Low enough to seriously injure or kill someone walking past. He managed to raise it and tie it to our roof, then came to my room and said, “It’s your internet problem. You should call someone.”
He’d assumed it was our internet cable. He’d assumed I was responsible. He’d assumed it was safe enough to handle. All wrong. We use underground broadband, the line had nothing to do with us, and touching a live powerline could have killed him. Three assumptions, made in seconds, each one potentially catastrophic. Yet they felt so certain to him that he never questioned them.
The Illusion of Certainty
That’s the thing about assumptions. They masquerade as facts. They give us the comfortable feeling of knowing something without the inconvenient work of verification. We assume the car will stop because we have right of way. We assume our colleague understood what we meant because we said it clearly. We assume someone’s silence means consent, or that their smile means happiness, or that their wealth means success.
I think about this when I see people making medical decisions based on what they’ve assumed about symptoms, rather than what a doctor has verified. Or when relationships fracture because someone assumed their partner’s behaviour meant one thing when it actually meant something else entirely. I’ve watched people lose job opportunities because they assumed they weren’t qualified, and I’ve seen others fail spectacularly because they assumed they were. The assumption felt true in both cases. That’s what makes them so dangerous.
A friend once told me about nearly driving into a flooded underpass during a storm. The road looked passable. She assumed the water was shallow. She assumed her car could handle it. She assumed other drivers had made it through. It wasn’t until she was almost at the water’s edge that something made her pause, reverse, and take another route. Later she learned the water was deep enough to submerge a vehicle. Her assumptions had been leading her straight into danger, and they’d felt completely reasonable at the time.
When Pressure Amplifies Risk
Assumptions become particularly treacherous under pressure. When we’re stressed, rushed, or overwhelmed, our brains default to shortcuts. We don’t have the mental bandwidth to question what seems obvious. My brother wasn’t being reckless when he touched that powerline, he was being human. Faced with an apparent problem, he jumped to a quick solution based on what seemed logical.
This happens in hospitals when staff assume the previous shift checked something important. It happens in offices when people assume someone else has covered a critical detail. It happens on building sites when workers assume safety protocols have been followed. These aren’t failures of character, they’re failures of awareness. The assumption feels so natural that questioning it doesn’t even occur to us.
I see this pattern everywhere once you start looking for it. Parents assume their teenager is fine because they’re eating and going to school, missing signs of depression. Drivers assume the other car will give way because that’s what the rules say should happen. Neighbours assume that elderly person next door is managing because they haven’t asked for help. Each assumption carries hidden risk, yet we make them constantly because the alternative, verifying everything, feels impossible.
The Cost of Not Questioning
What disturbs me most isn’t that we make assumptions, it’s how resistant we are to questioning them. We treat our assumptions as though they’re equivalent to knowledge. We defend them. We build decisions on top of them. And when they turn out to be wrong, we’re genuinely shocked, as though reality has betrayed us rather than our thinking being flawed from the start.
I’ve done this myself more times than I care to admit. Assumed I had more time than I did. Assumed someone’s intentions without asking. Assumed a risk was acceptable because I’d gotten away with it before. And I’ve been lucky. The consequences were usually minor: missed deadlines, misunderstandings, small embarrassments. But luck isn’t a strategy. Sooner or later, an unchecked assumption catches up with you.
The tragedy is that many disasters trace back to chains of assumptions. Accidents happen because someone assumed the equipment was maintained, the procedure was followed, the danger was minimal. Relationships collapse because people assumed their partner knew how they felt, assumed small issues would resolve themselves, assumed their love was obvious without demonstration. Careers derail because someone assumed their job was secure, their contributions were noticed, their skills would always be relevant.
A Different Way of Thinking
So what’s the alternative? We can’t verify everything. We’d be paralysed by constant doubt, unable to make decisions or take action. But we can learn to recognise when assumptions are carrying weight they shouldn’t. When something matters, when consequences could be serious, when we’re under pressure, that’s precisely when we need to slow down and ask: what am I assuming here? What if I’m wrong?
That powerline incident changed how I think about everyday decisions. Now when something seems obvious, I pause. When I’m certain about someone’s motives or meaning, I check. When I’m about to act on what feels like clear information, I verify. Not always, not obsessively, but in moments that matter. Because the few seconds it takes to question an assumption can prevent outcomes that take years to recover from, if recovery is even possible.
I think about the people who’ve lost loved ones to preventable accidents, to misunderstandings that spiralled, to dangers they assumed weren’t real. I think about my brother touching that powerline, so certain it was safe. I think about my friend at the edge of that flooded road. These moments reveal something fundamental about human nature: we’re wired for efficiency, not accuracy. Our brains want the shortcut, the quick answer, the path of least resistance.
But life doesn’t reward efficiency at the expense of truth. It rewards clarity, verification, and the humility to admit we might be wrong. The dangling cable wasn’t just a near miss, it was a mirror. It showed me how easily assumptions slip into our thinking, how natural they feel, how dangerous they can be. And it taught me that the question “what if I’m wrong?” might be one of the most important questions we can ask.
Because sometimes we’re not wrong. Sometimes our assumptions are correct. But the times they’re not, the cost can be everything.
