Drawing the Wrong Conclusions
I have been doing a lot of thinking about people, running around the same theme in scenarios that were bugging me and books I have been reading. Until thinking so much about this, I hadn't realized that I had little tolerance for people drawing false casualities between unrelated or coincidental information. Now that I realize what it is that bugs me so much, I see examples everywhere.
Just because A and B exist together does not mean A caused B to happen.
Although this seems like something I am just realizing about myself, my friend Michelle apparently knows me a little better than that. Michelle, who is one of my oldest friends (twenty years now), is with me in a Bible study group in which we are discussing a Max Lucado book, John 3:16. I don't have a problem with the lessons, exactly, but I have a real problem with Lucado's line of logic in the book. Last week it was Michelle's turn to lead the discussion, and when she brought up the assumption that Lucado makes in Chapter 2 that "if the heavens exist, than there must be a Creator", I was suddenly up in arms.
"I knew you would have a problem with this," she says to me.
Of course. It is an illogical statement. Just because stars are in the sky does not prove that God exists. I wonder, now, about how visible my thought process is to others.
Apparently not always that visible, as in the case of my best friend's husband. We were talking about memory and he mentioned, "you know what I remember about the last time we hung out?" He proceeded to tell me that on the night he came over last, I was acting less friendly towards him because of his recent lifestlye change, which meant I didn't accept his decision.
He actually accused me of acting like he had cooties.
I was acting less friendly. He did have a recent lifestyle change. However, in this case, B did not cause A. I actually had just had a terrible fight with my husband, was sad/depressed/tired, and the minute this friend's husband came in, he instantly offered me a drink called a Green Frog, which is very strong and, as alcoholic beverages tend to do, made me more sad/depressed/tired. And apparently bad at cards, as well.
Perhaps the real reason I was acting less friendly towards him was because the drink he gave me (well, two drinks) caused me to lose the ability to make coherent decisions and therefore blew my chance at beating his wife in the hot game of cards we've been playing. Hmm, think about that one, M.C.!
He put it out there when he talked to me, he said that word, assume. "I assumed you were acting that way because of the decision I had made." That is the common basis for what is bugging me about each of the situations, and you know what happens when you ass-u-me.
My boss does this all the time, and it drives me insane. She takes two unrelated bits of information and tacks them together and calls it "cause".
My favorite example of her doing this is the Pink Calculator story. I am still laughing about this.
I was upset about a decision management made regarding my boss and another employee. This is the story I refer to in my blog story called Pathological Footprints. I was pissed, to be frank.
During this time, my boss told another employee that I was acting weird, and said, "I have this pink calculator I got. Do you think if I gave it to her, it would calm her down?"
Meanwhile, my kids were really sick and I had to take some time off to deal with them. She had been more than generous with my time off requests and asked about my kids, and I responded to her kindness with open friendliness.
She then went and told that other employee that I was acting much better since she had given me that silly little thing.
"I think that pink calculator really did it!"