Don't Jump To Conclusions Quotes

Most of the problems in life are because: We misunderstand people's intentions, We don't listen and jump to conclusions, Then we are too proud to apologise and too stubborn to forgive.

and in the meantime don't jump to conclusions.

What's the lesson here, Smackie? Don't jump to conclusions? Never lower your gaze first.

Well, it's no good jumping at conclusions." "Jump? You don't even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion. I believe if you caught the cat with her head in the cream-jug you'd say it was conceivable that the jug was empty when she got there.

In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don’t know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying. But maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, presuming that other people are a mess just because I’m put together in such a disorderly way. If so, I should apologize.

Don't look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the stranger's world.

I opened the fire door to four lips none of which were mine kissing tightened my belt around my hips where your hands were missing and stepped out into the cold collar high under the slate grey sky the air was smoking and the streets were dry and I wasn't joking when I said Good Bye magazine quality men talking on the corner French, no less much less of them then us so why do I feel like something's been rearranged? you know, taken out of context I must seem so strange killed a cockroach so big it left a puddle of pus on the wall when you and I are lying in bed you don't seem so tall I'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired I make such a good statistic someone should study me now somebody's got to be interested in how I feel just 'cause I'm here and I'm real oh, how I miss substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss and oh, how I miss walking up to the edge and jumping in like I could feel the future on your skin I opened the fire door to four lips none of which were mine kissing I opened the fire door

I don’t jump to conclusions. I cannonball into them like a motherfuckin’ boss.

Although 'jumping to conclusions' is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper, If you jump in front of moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not jumping at all. But it is hard not to jump at all when you are jumping to conclusions, and it is impossible to make sure that you are jumping to a safe place, because all 'jumping to conclusions' means is that you are believing something is true even though you don't actually know whether it is or not.

You have done what was required of you," said the Director. "You have obeyed and waited. It will often happen like that. As one of the modern authors has told us, the altar must often be built in one place in order that the fire from heaven may descend somewhere else. But don't jump to conclusions. You may have plenty of work to do before a month is passed...

If you don’t know something, ask. You have to be able to admit you don’t know something, otherwise you’ll just get more and more confused, or worse, you’ll jump to a false conclusion. All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.

Our musicians in residence carry this belief into the classroom. They don't think of children's self-esteem as so fragile that it will be shattered by the suggestion that the child guessed wrong or jumped to an invalid conclusion. They make corrections matter-of-factly, with no feeling that a chid is a failure because she has made an error, but with ocnfidence that the feedback will help the child learn and be accurate the next time.

Listen with an open mind, gather all the incoming information, both verbal and non-verbal and be careful not to ignore things you don’t wish to hear. Don’t make assumptions or jump to conclusions. The punchline usually comes at the end!

That's how they work, though. They don't try to convince you of anything. They make you doubt what you know. Make you jump to the wrong conclusions yourself.

Table 3–1. Definitions of Cognitive Distortions 1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Most of us do not feel heard much of the time. That’s because most people don’t know how to listen. We jump to conclusions. We think we understand when we don’t. We tee up our next point, before the other person has finished talking.

I have a bad habbit of clinging to the people and places that have been hurting me today I asked myself to explain why because sometimes it doesn't make sense to me either this is the conclusion I have come to I stay because although im treated poorly I find comfort in the surety of knowing exactly what I'm getting moving on is a commitment to uncertainty and things could always be worse on the other side of a big jump I have never been good with risk I don't like to gamble I like control

And were they happy together? Sally asked ...; for, she admitted, she knew nothing about them, only jumped to conclusions, as one does, for what can one know even of the people one lives with every day? she asked. Are we not all prisoners? She had read a wonderful play about a man who scratched on the wall of his cell, and she had felt that was true of life — one scratched on the wall.

Some ghosts just want a little attention. Some have unfinished business that they need to work through, emotions they have to process. A few..." She looked pointedly at Galen. "A few don't understand they're dead. You can see why I'd jump to conclusions about you.

This is how to start telling the difference between thoughts that are informed by your intuition and thoughts that are informed by fear: Intuitive thoughts are calm. Intruding thoughts are hectic and fear-inducing. Intuitive thoughts are rational; they make a degree of sense. Intruding thoughts are irrational and often stem from aggrandizing a situation or jumping to the worst conclusion possible. Intuitive thoughts help you in the present. They give you information that you need to make a better-informed decision. Intruding thoughts are often random and have nothing to do with what’s going on in the moment. Intuitive thoughts are “quiet”; intruding thoughts are “loud,” which makes one harder to hear than the other. Intuitive thoughts usually come to you once, maybe twice, and they induce a feeling of understanding. Intruding thoughts tend to be persistent and induce a feeling of panic. Intuitive thoughts often sound loving, while invasive thoughts sound scared. Intuitive thoughts usually come out of nowhere; invasive thoughts are usually triggered by external stimuli. Intuitive thoughts don’t need to be grappled with—you have them and then you let them go. Invasive thoughts begin a whole spiral of ideas and fears, making it feel impossible to stop thinking about them. Even when an intuitive thought doesn’t tell you something you like, it never makes you feel panicked. Even if you experience sadness or disappointment, you don’t feel overwhelmingly anxious. Panic is the emotion you experience when you don’t know what to do with a feeling. It is what happens when you have an invasive thought. Intuitive thoughts open your mind to other possibilities; invasive thoughts close your heart and make you feel stuck or condemned. Intuitive thoughts come from the perspective of your best self; invasive thoughts come from the perspective of your most fearful, small self. Intuitive thoughts solve problems; invasive thoughts create them. Intuitive thoughts help you help others; invasive thoughts tend to create a “me vs. them” mentality. Intuitive thoughts help you understand what you’re thinking and feeling; invasive thoughts assume what other people are thinking and feeling. Intuitive thoughts are rational; invasive thoughts are irrational. Intuitive thoughts come from a deeper place within you and give you a resounding feeling deep in your gut; invasive thoughts keep you stuck in your head and give you a panicked feeling. Intuitive thoughts show you how to respond; invasive thoughts demand that you react.

Annabeth took a deep breath. “I, ah . . . well, it said, You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze . . .” We waited. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.” Grover perked up. “The lost one! That must mean Pan! That’s great!” “With the dead and the traitor,” I added. “Not so great.” “And?” Chiron asked. “What is the rest?” “You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” Annabeth said, “the child of Athena’s final stand.” Everyone looked around uncomfortably. Annabeth was a daughter of Athena, and a final stand didn’t sound good. “Hey . . . we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Silena said. “Annabeth isn’t the only child of Athena, right?” “But who’s this ghost king?” Beckendorf asked. No one answered. I thought about the Iris-message I’d seen of Nico summoning spirits. I had a bad feeling the prophecy was connected to that. “Are there more lines?” Chiron asked. “The prophecy does not sound complete.” Annabeth hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly.” Chiron raised an eyebrow. Annabeth was known for her memory. She never forgot something she heard. Annabeth shifted on her bench. “Something about . . . Destroy with a hero’s final breath.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that another person just doesn’t get it or isn’t wise enough just because he doesn’t agree with you. The

When we don't have all the facts, it's easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.

Don’t twist your ankle jumping to conclusions.

The reason why people think stereotypes exist is because they don’t take the time to get to know each other and jump to conclusions about a person’s personality out of laziness.

Well, it’s no good jumping at conclusions.” “Jump? You don’t even crawl distantly within sight of a conclusion.

I don't think we should judge her or anyone else without trying to understand them first. Maybe we should find out the whole story before we jump to conclusions.

[P]eople erroneously jump to the conclusions that if I want to press it, I choose to want to. This is of course false. I don't choose my desires. I only feel them, and act accordingly.

James offers a different way: Hush up, listen carefully, ask questions, don’t jump to conclusions, and put a lid on your anger so you don’t ruin the moment and, perhaps, the relationship.

Do you ever think what might've happened if they weren't so damn impatient? If Romeo had stopped for a second and gotten a doctor, or waited for Juliet to wake up? Not jumped to conclusions and gone and poisoned himself thinking she was dead when she was just sleeping? I've seen that movie so many times, and every damn time, it's like screaming at the girl in the horror movie. Don't go in the basement. The killer's down there. With Romeo and Juliet, I yell, 'Don't jump to conclusions.' But do those fools ever listen to me? I always imagine what might've happened if they'd waited. Juliet would've woken up. They'd already be married. They might've moved away, far away from the Montagues and the Capulets, gotten themselves a cute castle of their own. Decorated it up nice. Maybe it would've been like The Winter's Tale. By thinking Hermione was dead, Leontes had time to stop acting like a fool and then later he was so happy to find out she was alive. Maybe the Montagues and the Capulets would find out later that their beloved kids weren't dead, and wasn't it stupid to feud, and everyone would be happy. Maybe it would've turned the whole tragedy into a comedy.

Most people reflect on their own thoughts: Is this true? Am I overreacting? I should check this out. But people with PDs don’t seem to have the ability to reflect on their own thoughts or behavior. Like someone who is drunk, their thinking is continually “under the influence” of their cognitive distortions. They can send, but not receive, new information. Because they are unaware of their cognitive distortions, these distortions can underlie serious misbehavior, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, and even legal abuse (using the legal system to attack a target and to promote false or unnecessary litigation). Information that does not fit the distortion is rigidly unconsciously blocked as too threatening and confusing. Instead, people with PDs defend their distortions in an effort to protect themselves. Blamers repeatedly react to “false alarms” caused by all-or-nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions, and so forth. They truly believe that they are in danger, and they feel powerless and out of control inside.

So attitude is something we should constantly do an internal check-up on--and make adjustments. The beautiful thing about an attitude change can be likened to the words 'Cut!"and 'Action!'. If the take was horrible, a new reality can begin with the next take when they call "Action!' just moments later." "...if you realize that you cannot change your attitude--if you come to the conclusion you don't even care if you change your attitude--if you find yourself unable to jump-start any change in your attitude, you've got a serious problem and you should seek help.

You haven't been fired," Mary said with a sigh. "You always jump to the worst possible conclusion. Why on earth would you be getting fired?" Don't say the pens, don't say the pens, don't say the pens . . . "I've nicked loads of pens." "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

SENECA OFFERS lots of specific advice on how to prevent anger. We should, he says, fight our tendency to believe the worst about others and our tendency to jump to conclusions about their motivations. We need to keep in mind that just because things don’t turn out the way we want them to, it doesn’t follow that someone has done us an injustice.

You don’t want to do this, Miss Sheffield,” he warned. “Oh,” she said with great feeling, “I do. I really, really do.” And then, with quite the most evil grin her lips had ever formed, she drew back her mallet and smacked her ball with every ounce of every single emotion within her. It knocked into his with stunning force, sending it hurtling even farther down the hill. Farther . . . Farther . . . Right into the lake. Openmouthed with delight, Kate just stared for a moment as the pink ball sank into the lake. Then something rose up within her, some strange and primitive emotion, and before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes! Yes! I win!” “You don’t win,” Anthony snapped. “Oh, it feels like I’ve won,” she reveled. Colin and Daphne, who had come dashing down the hill, skidded to a halt before them. “Well done, Miss Sheffield!” Colin exclaimed. “I knew you were worthy of the mallet of death.” “Brilliant,” Daphne agreed. “Absolutely brilliant.” Anthony, of course, had no choice but to cross his arms and scowl mightily. Colin gave her a congenial pat on the back. “Are you certain you’re not a Bridgerton in disguise? You have truly lived up to the spirit of the game.” “I couldn’t have done it without you,” Kate said graciously. “If you hadn’t hit his ball down the hill . . .” “I had been hoping you would pick up the reins of his destruction,” Colin said. The duke finally approached, Edwina at his side. “A rather stunning conclusion to the game,” he commented. “It’s not over yet,” Daphne said. Her husband gave her a faintly amused glance. “To continue the play now seems rather anticlimactic, don’t you think?” Surprisingly, even Colin agreed. “I certainly can’t imagine anything topping it.” Kate beamed. The duke glanced up at the sky. “Furthermore, it’s starting to cloud over. I want to get Daphne in before it starts to rain. Delicate condition and all, you know.” Kate looked in surprise at Daphne, who had started to blush. She didn’t look the least bit pregnant. “Very well,” Colin said. “I move we end the game and declare Miss Sheffield the winner.” “I was two wickets behind the rest of you,” Kate demurred. “Nevertheless,” Colin said, “any true aficionado of Bridgerton Pall Mall understands that sending Anthony into the lake is far more important than actually sending one’s ball through all the wickets. Which makes you our winner, Miss Sheffield.” He looked about, then straight at Anthony. “Does anyone disagree?” No one did, although Anthony looked close to violence. “Excellent,” Colin said. “In that case, Miss Sheffield is our winner, and Anthony, you are our loser.” A strange, muffled sound burst from Kate’s mouth, half laugh and half choke. “Well, someone has to lose,” Colin said with a grin. “It’s tradition.” “It’s true,” Daphne agreed. “We’re a bloodthirsty lot, but we do like to follow tradition.

Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You’re so sure that you’ll do everything wrong you’re afraid to do anything at all…You fix things that don’t need fixing, and chase after imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors into the machine because of your own nervousness. These errors, when made, tend to confirm your original underestimation of yourself.

I suppose… I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But knowing what I do of your past… I assumed…” Her lame attempt at an apology seemed to erode the remnants of Sebastian’s self-control. “Well, your assumption was wrong! If you haven’t yet noticed, I’m busier than the devil in a high wind, every minute of the day. I don’t have the damned time for a tumble. And if I did—” He stopped abruptly. All semblance of the elegant viscount Evie had once watched from afar in Lord Westcliff’s drawing room had vanished. He was rumpled and bruised and furious. And he wasn’t breathing at all well. “If I did—” He broke off again, a flush crossing the crests of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Evie saw the exact moment when his self-restraint snapped. Alarm jolted through her, and she lurched toward the closed door. Before she had even made a step, she found herself seized and pinned against the wall by his body and hands. The smell of sweat-dampened linen and healthy, aroused male filled her nostrils. Once he had caught her, Sebastian pressed his parted lips against the thin skin of her temple. His breath snagged. Another moment of stillness. Evie felt the electrifying touch of his tongue at the very tip of her eyebrow. He breathed against the tiny wet spot, a waft of hellfire that sent chills through her entire body. Slowly he brought his mouth to her ear, and traced the intricate inner edges. His whisper seemed to come from the darkest recesses of her own mind. “If I did, Evie… then by now I would have shredded your clothes with my hands and teeth until you were naked. By now I would have pushed you down to the carpet, and put my hands beneath your breasts and lifted them up to my mouth. I would be kissing them… licking them… until the tips were like hard little berries, and then I would bite them so gently…” Evie felt herself drift into a slow half swoon as he continued in a ragged murmur. “… I would kiss my way down to your thighs… inch by inch… and when I reached those sweet red curls, I would lick through them, deeper and deeper, until I found the little pearl of your clitoris… and I would rest my tongue on it until I felt it throb. I would circle it, and stroke it… I’d lick until you started to beg. And then I would suck you. But not hard. I wouldn’t be that kind. I would do it so lightly, so tenderly, that you would start screaming with the need to come… I would put my tongue inside you… taste you… eat you. I wouldn’t stop until your entire body was wet and shaking. And when I had tortured you enough, I would open your legs and come inside you, and take you… take you…” Sebastian stopped, anchoring her against the wall while they both remained frozen, aroused, panting. At length, he spoke in a nearly inaudible voice. “You’re wet, aren’t you?” Had it been physically possible to blush any harder, Evie would have. Her skin burned with violated modesty as she understood what he was asking. She tipped her chin in the tiniest of nods. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything on this earth.

So far Tris was immune to the new version of the serum we created--it had no effect whatsoever. It’s very strange that a person’s genes would make them so resistant to mind manipulation of any kind.” “Maybe it’s not her genes,” I say, shrugging. I switch feet. “Maybe it’s some kind of superhuman stubbornness.” “Oh, are we at the insult part of the breakup?” she says. “Because I got in a lot of practice after what happened with Will. I have several choice things to say about her nose.” “We didn’t break up.” I grin. “But it’s nice to know you have such warm feelings for my girlfriend.” “I apologize, I don’t know why I jumped to that conclusion.” Cara’s cheeks flush. “My feelings toward your girlfriend are mixed, yes, but for the most part I have a lot of respect for her.” “I know. I was just kidding. It’s nice to see you get flustered every once in a while.” Cara glares at me. “Besides,” I say, “what’s wrong with her nose?

used to drink every night. Every night I drank a bottle of tequila and went to bed and slept like a baby. I was never sick a day; I looked good, I felt good, I slept well. No more. Now I have one cold after the other, headaches, arthritis; and I can’t sleep a wink. All because the doctor said I had to stop drinking tequila. But don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not a drunk. You can take all the wine and whiskey in the world and dump it down the Grand Canyon. It’s only that I like tequila.

Lamore took his doubts to his boss, Robert Sollazzo, who had doubts too. But not enough doubts. As the SEC postmortem on the Madoff case concluded, “Sollazzo did not find that Madoff’s claim to be trading on ‘gut feel’ was ‘necessarily…ridiculous.’” The SEC defaulted to truth, and the fraud continued. Across Wall Street, in fact, countless people who had had dealings with Madoff thought that something didn’t quite add up about him. Several investment banks steered clear of him. Even the real-estate broker who rented him his office space thought he was a bit off. But no one did anything about it, or jumped to the conclusion that he was history’s greatest con man. In the Madoff case, everyone defaulted to truth—everyone, that is, except one person.

Davy, Didn't you realize that the only thing I wanted from Mark was his version of the night you,  well, removed him from the party? I know Mark is a sleaze. I'm not involved with him in any  way, but when you vanished from in front of me, what was I to think? I don't know if you're even human. For all I knew you fly around in a flying saucer kidnapping  humans left and right. If this sort of jumping to conclusions bothers you, think how much  alternative explanation you offered. I know you're hurt, and I guess you were hurt even more when you thought I was getting  involved with Mark again. But, dammit, you are doing your share of lashing out, yourself. Millie P.S. I still don't know if you are human, but I know that I care for you enough that you can  hurt me. You did.

Twenty-Five Ways to Be a Good Listener        1. Be patient.        2. Don’t complete his sentences.        3. Let him finish, even if he seems to be rambling.        4. Don’t interrupt.        5. Face your husband and make eye contact.        6. Lean forward, if you are seated, to show you are interested.        7. Stop what you are doing.        8. Ask good questions and avoid the word “why.”        9. Ask his opinion about something that happened to you.      10. Ask him for his advice on a decision you have to make.      11. Don’t jump to conclusions.      12. Don’t give unsolicited advice.      13. Don’t change the subject until he is finished with a subject.      14. Make verbal responses such as, “I see,” “Really,” “Uh-huh,” to show you’re paying attention.      15. Turn off the TV.      16. Put down the dishcloth, book, hairbrush, etc.      17. Encourage him to tell you more. “What else did he say?” “What did she do next?”      18. When he is telling of a struggle, rephrase and repeat what you heard. “What I hear you saying is that you felt your boss was being unfair when he asked you to take on three more clients with no extra compensation.”      19. Let the telephone ring if he is in the middle of telling you something.      20. Don’t glance at your watch or cross your arms.      21. Don’t ask him to hurry.      22. If a child interrupts, tell him or her to wait until daddy is finished talking.      23. Don’t tell him how he should have handled the situation differently.      24. Don’t act bored.      25. Thank him for sharing with you.

Sometimes the best conversations between strangers allow the stranger to remain a stranger. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the stranger is easy. If I can convince you of one thing in this book, let it be this: Strangers are not easy. The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant about them. It is that there is something wrong with us. You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them. Those who are not part of existing social hierarchies are free to blurt out inconvenient truths or question things the rest of us take for granted. The advantage to human beings lies in assuming that strangers are truthful. If you don’t begin in a state of trust, you can’t have meaningful social encounters. But remember, doubts are not the enemy of belief; they are its companion. Our strategies for dealing with strangers are deeply flawed, but they are also socially necessary. We tend to judge people’s honesty based on their demeanor. Well-spoken, confident people with a firm handshake who are friendly and engaging are seen as believable. Nervous, shifty, stammering, uncomfortable people who give windy, convoluted explanations aren’t. We do not understand the importance of the context in which the stranger is operating. When you confront the stranger, you have to ask yourself where and when you’re confronting the stranger—because those two things powerfully influence your interpretation of who the stranger is. Don’t look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the stranger’s world.

You know what the best course I ever took at college was? Biology. We studied evolution. And I learned something important.’ Now he included Leonard in his gaze. ‘It helped me choose my career. For thousands, no, millions of years we had these huge brains, the neo-cortex, right? But we didn’t speak to each other, and we lived like fucking pigs. There was nothing. No language, no culture, nothing. And then, suddenly, wham! It was there. Suddenly it was something we had to have, and there was no turning back. So why did it suddenly happen?’ Russell shrugged. ‘Hand of God?’ ‘Hand of God my ass. I’ll tell you why. Back then we all used to hang out together all day long doing the same thing. We lived in packs. So there was no need for language. If there was a leopard coming, there was no point saying, Hey man, what’s coming down the track? A leopard! Everyone could see it, everyone was jumping up and down and screaming, trying to scare it off. But what happens when someone goes off on his own for a moment’s privacy? When he sees a leopard coming, he knows something the others don’t. And he knows they don’t know. He has something they don’t, he has a secret, and this is the beginning of his individuality, of his consciousness. If he wants to share his secret and run down the track to warn the other guys, then he’s going to need to invent language. From there grows the possibility of culture. Or he can hang back and hope the leopard will take out the leadership that’s been giving him a hard time. A secret plan, that means more individuation, more consciousness.’ The band was starting to play a fast, loud number. Glass had to shout his conclusion, ‘Secrecy made us possible,’ and Russell raised his beer to salute the theory.

The partner who surrenders to the reality of who the other is notices the shape a relationship is taking but does not try to control its direction. Here is what aligning to the reality of the other may sound like to a man who is dating: “I enjoy her company, and I notice she enjoys mine. At the same time, she has many male friends with whom she shares her feelings and ideas at what seems like quite an intimate level. I want to honor that support system. I trust that her friendships are all as platonic as she says, yet doubts arise sometimes. I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I don’t want to demand that I be the one and only. But I do want to become special and primary if she is open to that. I can let go of that wish if it can’t match reality, to which I owe my main loyalty. I will open a dialogue with her about all this, state my concerns, and present my wish. I won’t do this all at once but time it all in accord with what seems right for both of us.” This is the healthy alternative to “I can’t trust any woman who has this many male friends.

His light blue shuma and silver torque did nothing to hide the mass of cuts, scrapes, and purple bruises that covered his body and made his iridescent tattoos practically glow by contrast. He had a dark bruise under one eye that ran all the way down to the ulumi-lia tattoo on his cheekbone, and another on his jaw. “This?” He gestured to his battered frame. “Ono, moa halea.I was invited to partake in a wrestling match yesterday afternoon.” “A wrestling match with whom? Kukuna the Stone God?” His grin flashed, then faltered as the gesture tugged at his split lip. “It was a very intense match. And you have been reading the legends of my people. You are curious about Calberna. This is good.” She grimaced. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I read most of those legends before I met you so I could teach the children at the school about Calberna.” Then, because curiosity got the best of her, she asked, “So which one of Wynter’s men beat you to a pulp?” His brows rose. “I am unpulped.” “Not from where I’m standing. Or are you saying the other fellow looks worse?” He cocked his head to one side, as if considering, then gave that charming half grin again and said, “About the same. We declared it equal contest.” “Who did you leave unpulped then?” “It is of no concern. We had our match. We tested each other’s skill and resolve, and came away with a new understanding of each other.” 

Don’t jump to conclusions over first impressions. They’re often dead wrong. When I first met Mark, I thought he was spoiled. When I met Shirley, I assumed she was tough as nails. But getting to know them both as a member of their family, I saw how wrong I was. Shirley is a teddy bear, a caring, loving person who would do anything for me. And Mark? I think of him as a brother, in every sense of the word. I’ve learned to make a special effort to get to know the people who put up walls and seem cold or tough. It’s like an onion; you have to peel back the layers. I’m sure some of my DWTS partners made an assumption about who I was the first time they worked with me. They probably thought I was a tough taskmaster and cursed me out for putting them through this! But anyone who truly knows me will tell you, I’m harder on myself than I am on anyone else. And I’m a softie who loves to goof around. But to see that side of me, you need to move past the first impression. What’s the lesson here? Dig a little deeper. Get to know people and what makes them tick. Don’t make an assumption till you know someone a lot better. Think of all the people you might have dismissed who could have been great friends, mentors, or allies, if you’d only given them the chance. Perfect example: dancing with Lil’ Kim on DWTS. She had recently spent time in jail and I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, I’m afraid I’m going to get shanked in the middle of the dance! Then I realized I was judging her without knowing her, something that I have hated people doing to me in the past. It took only a few minutes to see the sweet, loving person she truly was. Had I not given us the chance to get to know each other better, I never would have learned that.

Thunk. I jump back in alarm, my heart pounding against my ribs. And then I hear, “Jemma!” A loud whisper, coming from below. I open up the doors and step outside. Moving quickly to the railing, I lean against it and peer down to find Ryder standing there, staring up at me. He’s dressed in a suit and tie--the same charcoal suit he wore to the gala, with a narrow silver-blue tie. “What are you doing?” I call down to him. He drops a handful of pebbles, scattering them into the grass by his feet. “Shh! Can I come up?” I lower my voice to match his. “What’s wrong with the front door?” He eyes me with raised brows. “Really?” I picture my parents downstairs. Imagine what questions they’d ask, what gleeful conclusions they’d leap to at the sight of him here, asking to see me. I shake my head and reach a hand down toward him. “Here, can you climb?” There’s a vine-covered trellis against the house beside my balcony. If he can just get a foothold, he’s tall enough to swing himself up and over the railing. Which he does in less than two minutes. Pretty impressive, actually. Once he’s got both feet on the balcony, he casually brushes himself off. Somehow, he manages to look like he just stepped off the cover of GQ. I tip my head toward the window. “You wanna come in?” “You think it’s safe?” “Just let me go lock the door,” I say before hurrying back inside. And don’t think I’m not amused by the irony. Because unlike normal people, we’re not sneaking around to avoid being caught and punished. Nope. On the contrary, our parents would celebrate if they caught us in my bedroom together. I’m talking music and streamers and champagne toasts. As quietly as possible, I turn the key in the lock, listening for the click. Sorry, folks. No party tonight.

Whatever happened between you and Keefe yesterday—and I know something happened, so there’s no point trying to deny it—are you going to talk to him about it? And I mean really talk to him and tell him how you feel?” Sophie twisted free. “I don’t—” “Yes, you do,” Edaline insisted. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Edaline smiled. “Pretty sure I can guess. And I understand the instinct to hide these kinds of feelings—sometimes even from ourselves. But… I know they’re there. And not just for you.” She pointed to Sophie’s new stuffed elf as evidence—and Sophie could’ve sworn its little smile turned a bit smug. “I’m definitely not trying to tell you what to do or who to choose or put any pressure on you in any way,” Edaline assured her. “I also know that what I’m asking you to do isn’t easy. Having an open conversation about feelings with someone can be really scary. Especially when they’re also your friend. It’s natural to be afraid of getting hurt—or of ruining all the good things you already have. And I can’t guarantee that won’t happen. But”—she reached for Sophie’s arms again—“it’s still super important to have that conversation. Because it’s way too easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. So just… talk to him, okay? I’m not saying right this moment. But don’t let it go too long, either. And I know you’re going to tell me you have all these huge things going on and you need to focus on them, but… this is important. I can tell Keefe is important to you. So just… do what you always do when you’re getting ready to face some epic showdown with the Neverseen.” “You’re comparing this to a battle?” Sophie had to ask. “Why not? Sometimes relationships feel like that. So put your shields up if you need to. But don’t let that stop you from charging headfirst into the unknown. Be bold. Be brave. Be honest. And be you. You’re Sophie Foster. I know you can do this!

Catch Either/Or Thinking Anxious perfectionists will typically think “I need to perform flawlessly at all times,” with their underlying assumption being “or else it will result in disaster.” This is a common type of thinking trap termed either/or thinking. In this case, the either/or is this: Either there is flawless performance or complete and utter failure, and nothing in between. Not only can this style of thinking make you feel crushed when you don’t meet your own ideal standards, but it also often leads to perfectionism paralysis. Take, for example, an artist who sees his future career prospects as becoming either the next Picasso or a penniless flop; this person doesn’t see other possible outcomes in between. You can see how this would give the artist a creative block. For other folks, their hidden assumption may be slightly different: “Either I need to perform flawlessly at all times, or other people will reject me.” When I look back at my clinical psychology training, I realize I had this belief at that time. At a semiconscious level, I thought that the only way to prevent getting booted out of the program was to score at the top of the class for every test or assignment. Ultra-high standards often arise because a person is trying to hide imagined catastrophic flaws. In this scenario, people often think that if their flaws get revealed they’ll be shunned, and so the only way to conceal their defects is by always excelling. When people who have this belief do excel, their brain jumps to the conclusion that excelling was the only reason they managed to avoid catastrophe. This then perpetuates their belief that excelling is necessary for preventing future disasters. Researchers have used the term clinical perfectionism to describe the most problematic kind of perfectionism. When clinical perfectionists manage to meet their ultra-high standards, they often conclude that those standards must not have been high enough and revise them upward, meaning they can never feel any sense of peace. All this being said, I’m not suggesting you shoot for “acceptable” performance standards if you’re capable of excellence. Most of the anxious perfectionists I’ve worked with would hate that. It’s not in their nature to feel comfortable with mediocre performance.

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Catastrophizing. Predicting extremely negative future outcomes, such as “If I don’t do well on this paper, I will flunk out of college and never have a good job.”   All-or-nothing. Viewing things as all-good or all-bad, black or white, as in “If my new colleagues don’t like me, they must hate me.” Personalization. Thinking that negative actions or words of others are related to you, or assuming that you are the cause of a negative event when you actually had no connection with it. Overgeneralizations. Seeing one negative situation as representative of all similar events. Labeling. Attaching negative labels to ourselves or others. Rather than focusing on a particular thing that you didn’t like and want to change, you might label yourself a loser or a failure. Magnification/minimization. Emphasizing bad things and deemphasizing good in a situation, such as making a big deal about making a mistake, and ignoring achievements. Emotional reasoning. Letting your feelings about something guide your conclusions about how things really are, as in “I feel hopeless, so my situation really must be hopeless.” Discounting positives. Disqualifying positive experiences as evidence that your negative beliefs are false—for example, by saying that you got lucky, something good happened accidentally, or someone was lying when giving you a compliment. Negativity bias. Seeing only the bad aspects of a situation and dwelling on them, in the process viewing the situation as completely bad even though there may have been positives. Should/must statements. Setting up expectations for yourself based on what you think you “should” do. These usually come from perceptions of what others think, and may be totally unrealistic. You might feel guilty for failing or not wanting these standards and feel frustration and resentment. Buddhism sets this in context. When the word “should” is used, it leaves no leeway for flexibility of self-acceptance. It is fine to have wise, loving, self-identified guidelines for behavior, but remember that the same response or action to all situations is neither productive nor ideal. One size never fits all.  Jumping to conclusions. Making negative predictions about the outcome of a situation without definite facts or evidence. This includes predicting a bad future event and acting as if it were already fact, or concluding that others reacted negatively to you without asking them. ​Dysfunctional automatic thoughts like these are common. If you think that they are causing suffering in your life, make sure you address them as a part of your CBT focus.

Luna left, too, with a cheery, “Thanks for the morning entertainment. That provided a better jolt than a cup of espresso.” Then it was just Arabella, her brother, and the really, really big man, who had just turned his gaze on her. Given his threats and violent solution, Arabella should have been quaking. At the very least staring at her toes lest she incur his wrath. But the gentlest blue eyes caught hers, and his tone was soft and soothing when he addressed her. “You must be Arabella. I’m Leo, the pride’s omega.” “More like enforcer,” Jeoff muttered, still rubbing his head. “If you behave, then I don’t have to resort to my methods.” “He started it,” Jeoff accused, pointing at finger at Hayder, who emerged from the bedroom clad in low-hipped jeans that hugged his corded thighs and a soft T-shirt that clung to his chest. “Hey, it’s not my fault you jumped to the wrong conclusion when I answered the door.” “What else was I to think? You’re in my sister’s condo wearing only a rag.” “Protecting her.” “The same way you protected her last night when you took her out and flaunted her?” “I took her to dinner.” “What the hell do you mean you took her out to dinner? You put my baby sister in danger.” “She wasn’t in danger.” “They snatched her off the street!” “And I got her back.” The men glared at each, toe-to-toe, bodies bristling. Leo, who’d seated himself on a stool by the kitchen island, cleared his throat. “Don’t make me get off this stool.” The tension remained, but the impending violence moved down a few notches. Seeming satisfied, Leo turned to her. “Coffee?” He addressed that to Arabella, holding out a cup he’d brewed from the machine on the counter. With a wary look at both Hayder and her brother, she went toward him but then almost scalded herself when Hayder barked, “Baby, where are your pants?” Oh yeah. She peeked down at her bare legs. To his credit, Leo didn’t, but he did smile. “How about I add some sugar and milk to this while you find some pants? You look like you need something sweet.” She couldn’t help but return his smile. “Yes, please.” Still ignoring the other two men, she stepped past them to the bedroom, where she scrounged in a drawer for pants. As she dressed, she listened to the arguing. “She’s leaving with me.” Her brother hadn’t relented. Neither did Hayder. “Wrong. Arabella isn’t going anywhere.” Ouch. She knew her brother wouldn’t like that. She was right. “Excuse me? You don’t get a say. She’s my sister, my responsibility. I’m taking her.” Arabella stepped back into the living room. “What of the danger though, Jeoff? The pack is in town, and they’re looking for me.” “We’ll figure something out.” “We already have. She’ll stay here with me where she’s safe.” Hayder crossed his arms over his impressive chest, looking much too determined— and sexy. A certain brother wasn’t impressed. “As safe as she was last night?” Hayder rolled his eyes. “Oh please. What part of ‘we had the situation under control’ can you not grasp? Leo, tell the wolf that Arabella was never in any danger.” “I don’t lie to my friends,” Leo said as he re-handed Arabella her coffee. She took a sip of the hot brew and sighed as she listened to the arguing. When Leo patted the stool beside him, she hopped on. For such a big man, he offered a strangely calming effect. On her at least. Hayder and Jeoff, on the other hand, just couldn’t stem their tirade. “I was wrong to stick her here. So you can forget I asked.” “Too late. She’s part of the pride now.” “She’s a wolf, or have you forgotten? She belongs with her own kind.” Jeoff crooked his finger at her and inclined his head to the door. Arabella didn’t move, more because Hayder’s next words froze her. “She belongs with me. Arabella is my mate.

This country has a UFO problem, after all. You might not have been aware we have one, or thought about it in these terms, but we do have a UFO problem: namely, we don't seem to understand what UFO really means. So here it is: a UFO is an unidentified flying object. So any time we see some object flying in the sky that we can't positively identify, we've seen a UFO. But in the same way the words paranormal and supernatural have been conflated, we now equate UFO with alien spacecraft. How this came to be is easily understandable. If we've learned one thing in this book already, people don't like the unknown very much. And so, if we believe we're being visited by other civilizations, we read the piles of books and articles on unexplained lights in the sky, then fill in the massive gaps—with wild tales of alien races, interstellar technology, and government conspiracies. If we don't believe, we hear someone saw an unexplained light in the sky and assume, first, that he's claiming to have seen E.T. Then we figure what he really saw was an airplane, Venus, swamp gas, or a helicopter, and he must be a bit foolish—maybe even a UFO nut. Then we laugh.

You shouldn’t give up on people when they vanish. You shouldn’t go, ‘ what a terrible pity but, oh well, that’s that.’ In actual fact the disappearance of someone is exactly everyone’s cue to get out and search, and keep searching and not stop until there’s dirt under their fingernails and wretchedness in their souls from the number of rocks they have pushed aside to see whether I’m under one of them. If you want to know my opinion, coming to terms with someone’s disappearance is a bit of an offence. It’s an insult to someone’s memory. I learned a lot though. As the days passed, I learned that staying lost made it’s made its own sort of sense. I learned that there’s not much of a difference between pretending to be dead and really dead. As far as I cans see, both seem to amount to the same thing. I learned that if someone you know disappears you shouldn’t automatically jump to conclusions. You should ask questions, and look, and search until you know for sure. Don’t write them off until you’ve exhausted every avenue. Keep hope in your heart,

For a minute there, I thought we really had us a problem.” Her hands went to her hips. “And you think we don’t?” “No ma’am, not the kind you’re imagining.” She opened her mouth and, with his gentlest touch, he closed it for her. Then drew his hand away before he lost it. “Like I said, I appreciate your candor, and I can see how you came to your conclusion. I don’t blame you for it either,” he added, seeing her brow rise. He pointed to her cider. “You going to drink that?” She shook her head. He picked up the mug and downed the contents, wishing it were something a little stronger. He’d sensed she wanted to talk about something, but they’d gotten derailed, as they often did. If this woman wanted to talk, he’d stay up the rest of the night to oblige her, despite being dog-tired. She didn’t let her walls down often, and he wanted to be there when she did. “You remember Slater, the man you sewed up at the doc’s clinic?” She slowly nodded, her skepticism obvious. “Men like him don’t hang around mercantiles or dry goods stores. You find men like him in saloons and gaming halls. So for the most part, that’s where I spend my time these days. And yes, there are women there. But . . .” He wanted so badly to touch her face, but the way she’d jumped when he’d taken hold of her hand told him he needed to move slowly with her. More slowly than he wanted to. “I have never . . . never been with a woman in one of those places.” McKenna looked at him, really looked at him, and he didn’t flinch. He hoped she would stare, study, search, do whatever she needed to do, for as long as she needed to do it—until she recognized the honesty in him.

Instead of assuming and jumping into conclusions, stop for a moment and think. "Is this really true or am I making it up?". Don't believe your racing thoughts.

don’t want to walk around with my imagination to depend on. I have a very evil imagination. It’s one of my wicked womanly powers. Much worse than magic.” “Is that right?” he asked with a laugh as he turned and crossed over to her. “Oh yes. Lots of exercise involved. I can jump to conclusions in a single bound. I’m more powerful than a murder motive. I’m faster than the town gossip. I am deadly and I must be stopped.

Mama. He's a genius, I think, but he doesn't make sense half the time! It's because he is powerful, I think, but Papa is powerful and isn't nearly as--as strange as Nico is!" "Kitty," Mama says, "why don't you spend more time with them this week? Find out more about what's happening before you jump to conclusions? Ask questions! Consider it--consider it your first spy mission as a prospective super villain! Learn their habits and weaknesses and choose which would make the best nemesis for you. Just as Max and Trent are battling now, if you become a super villain wouldn't it be wonderful to have someone you can go up against on a regular basis? Your father still tells stories of his battles

Don’t look at the stranger and jump to conclusions. Look at the stranger’s world.

If you are feeling bad, don't jump to conclusions. Don't react to people or situations quickly. Sometimes it's best to let them sit and marinate for awhile. If you've given it a week or so and you still feel like this is an issue that needs to be addressed, go ahead and address it then. You'll have a better handle on your emotions and hopefully you will have used that time to articulate specifically what the issue is so when you communicate with someone about it, you can be better understood.

Kling’s point is that no matter what language we speak, we should use slow thinking, not fast thinking. Citing Daniel Kahneman’s bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kling argues that we go wrong in political discourse when we hear a fact in isolation and jump to conclusions without considering its context. He encourages us to consider political problems slowly and logically instead—much like Elder did in our 2016 interview.

Of course, clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal. A dirty shirt may hide a pure heart, but it seldom covers a clean skin. If you look as if you had slept in our clothes, most men will jump to the conclusion that you have, and you will never get to know them well enough to explain that your head is so full of noble thoughts that you haven't time to bother with the dandruff on your shoulders...Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there's nothing like having them deceive for us instead of against us.

Don't jump to conclusions, walk there...

Dear Critics, since you employ the term "absurd humor," you should introduce its counterpart, "absurd seriousness." Learn to distinguish between forced and primitive seriousness, lighthearted and gallows seriousness. This bracingly sensical conception will jump-start critics and journalists alike. Do we not require, in life as in art, indiscriminate seriousness? bawdy seriousness? sparkling seriousness? spirited seriousness? I would read with pleasure about thinker X's "terrific sense of seriousness," about bard Ys "pearls of seriousness," about avant-garde Z's "offensive seriousness." Some reviewer or other will finally decide to remark that "playwright N. N.'s feeble play is redeemed by the effervescent seriousness of its conclusion" or that "in W.S's poetry one catches notes of unintentional seriousness." And why don't humor magazines have columns of seriousness? And why, moreover, do we have so many humor magazines and so few serious ones? Well?

Look, listen to all this, listen to all the noise that is going on in the world. Don’t take sides, don’t jump to any conclusions, but just listen. Don’t say one noise is better than another noise; they are all noises, so just listen first. And listen also to your own noise, your chattering, your wishes—‘I want to be this and I don’t want to be that

Even though you see something very bad about your neighbour, says Saint Bernard, don’t jump immediately to conclusions, but rather make excuses for him interiorly. Excuse his intention, if you cannot excuse his action. Think that he may have acted out of ignorance, or by surprise, or accidentally. If the thing is so blatant that it cannot be denied, even so, believe it to be so, and say inwardly: the temptation must have been very strong.[455]

First, we don’t know how to deal with rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of people. Second,… we tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we can mute, un-follow, and block everybody else. Third, online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs.… It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are actually real people and not just avatars. And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.… Fifth—and in my point of view, this is the most critical—today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep conversations. It’s as if we agreed that we are here to talk at each other instead of talking with each other.

Your Second Brain shouldn’t be just another way of conrming what you already know. We are already surrounded by algorithms that feed us only what we already believe and social networks that continually reinforce what we already think. Our ability to capture ideas from anywhere takes us in a dierent direction: By saving ideas that may contradict each other and don’t necessarily support what we already believe, we can train ourselves to take in information from dierent sources instead of immediately jumping to conclusions. By playing with ideas—bending and stretching and remixing them—we become less attached to the way they were originally presented and can borrow certain aspects or elements to use in our own work. If what you’re capturing doesn’t change your mind, then what’s the point?

Choose to use Social Media or a Cellphone with caution. Anything you send, say or post can be used against you. Nowadays people are recording videos , conversations and screen grabbing messages that you send to them. People are getting paid to be vile or mean. People are paid to say things they don’t believe in. People want to trend so badly. They will say anything to provoke you or to get engagement. Not everything is true. Even the news media are behind paywall or journalist are paid to be influencers. Don’t be too quickly to believe or to jump into conclusion. Don’t be too quickly to takes sides. Question everything that is suspicious. Think for a second. Sometimes they tell you things because they know you are so gullible you will believe them.

I don’t jump to anything,” said Jack. “I get blackout drunk and then stumble backward into conclusions, knocking them over so they shatter into a million pieces.

To really understand a text is therefore a constant revision of our first interpretation. We have to train ourselves to get used to seeing this difference and to hold back our ingrained urge to jump to conclusions. To be able to see what we see instead of what we expect to see is indeed a skill in itself, not like a character trait of being “open-minded.” Those who think of themselves as being open-minded are often even more prone to stick to their first understanding as they believe to be without natural prejudices and therefore don’t see the need to counterbalance them. If we think we can “hold back” an interpretation, we are fooling ourselves.

That means if you don’t listen to me, you’ll jump to your own conclusions and be dead wrong. Dead and wrong.

Also, remember that you are not your mistakes. Making a mistake doesn’t mean anything about you as a person. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that you’re inherently worthless, but you make mistakes; mistakes don’t make you. Place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise to the next level. It’s not how we make mistakes, but how we deal with them that defines us.

All-or-nothing thinking is when you see things as only black or white and either-or. For example, if you make a mistake while giving a speech, you think you are a total failure; or if a friend acts distant on the telephone, you believe he or she doesn’t like you anymore. Labeling is an extension of all-or-nothing thinking. When you make a mistake, instead of accepting that you made an error, you label yourself an idiot. If your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you, instead of realizing that he or she doesn’t love you, you call yourself unlovable. Overgeneralizing is basing conclusions on isolated events, then applying them across diverse situations. If you spill a soda, you think, “I’m always a klutz.” If you can’t think of something to say when introduced to someone new, you think, “I never make a good impression.” The tip-off to this type of thinking is use of the word “always” or “never.” Mental filtering is when you remember and dwell on only the negative elements of an event. For instance, after a party, you remember the awkward pauses in conversations, feeling uncomfortable, and forgetting people’s names, while you forget all moments when you had good conversations, introduced yourself to someone new, and when someone paid you a compliment. Discounting the positive is somewhat related to mental filtering. It is when you do something well, such as give a good speech, but make excuses like “It doesn’t count” or “Anyone could have done it” and feel the accomplishment wasn’t good enough. Jumping to conclusions is making negative interpretations about events when there is no evidence to support them. There are generally two forms of jumping to conclusions. In “mind reading,” you believe that someone is reacting negatively to you without checking it out. For instance, if two people stop their conversation when you walk up to them, you assume that they were gossiping about you. In “fortune telling,” you anticipate that things will turn out badly. If you fear taking tests, for example, you always feel that you will fail, even before you start the test. Magnification is exaggerating the importance of problems. For instance, if you don’t do well on a test, you believe you are going to fail the entire semester. Emotional reasoning is when you mistake your emotions for reality. For example, you feel lonely; therefore, you think no one likes you. ”Should” and “shouldn’t” statements are ways of thinking that make you feel that you are never good enough. Even though you do well on a job interview, you think, “I should have said this,” or “I shouldn’t have said that.” Other words that indicate this type of thinking are “ought to” and “have to.” Personalizing the blame is holding yourself responsible for things beyond your control. For instance, you are on your way to study with a group of classmates and you get stuck in traffic. Instead of realizing and accepting that the traffic problem is out of your control, you think you are irresponsible because you are going to be late.

Don’t jump to conclusions,” scolded Ahimsa as he wiped away a stray tear. “I’m happy I was thrown away. I love it here. I kicked off my shoes and lost my sock on purpose. I knew if I did, I’d get thrown out. People don’t like to keep things that are incomplete.

Whether he killed her or scavenged her remains, he’s a man-eater now, so he can’t stay. I just don’t want to jump to the conclusion he’s the killer and overlook the possibility she was--” Daniel’s arm nudged mine. A subtle gesture that could be accidental, but when you’ve been friends this long, you know when you’re being told to shut up.

She gave me a puzzled frown. “Didn’t you just have lunch—at your meeting?” I laughed, inwardly, holding back the sound of it behind a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sorry I called my lunch with Harry a meeting. I wasn’t sure how it would go and didn’t want you jumping to conclusions.” She turned her back to me to pour water into the teapot. “Now why would I do that?” “Because—“ “Because you’ve not set eyes on a woman in four years, give or take a couple of weeks.” She flicked me with a tea towel. “Now look at you with your dreamy eyes.” “I don’t have dreamy eyes, Mary,” I said, pretending to be affronted.

He called after me, “How old am I, Maya?” I turned. “How the hell should I know? Whatever you’ve told the school, I’m sure it’s a lie anyway.” “I’m sixteen, just like you. Or like you will be tomorrow, from what I heard. My birthday was last month.” “Congratulations.” I started walking again. “I’ll send you a card next year, if you hang around that long, which I doubt.” “You don’t need to doubt it. I’ll be leaving for sure if you tell anyone about Annie.” I wheeled. “Are you threatening to take her--?” “Legally, I can’t take her anywhere. I’m sixteen, Maya. Barely sixteen. She’s nineteen. Who’s the guardian here?” I paused, then said, softly, “Oh.” “Yeah, oh. Annie and I never knew our dad. Our mom died last year when Annie was eighteen. Before the accident. So she got custody of me.” “Accident? It’s brain damage?” The look in Rafe’s eyes, the grief…It hurt just to see it, and he turned away fast, mumbling, “Yeah. It’s brain damage. Point is that if anyone finds out, I’m off to a foster home and she’s off to an institution. Which neither of us wants.” I stepped toward him. “I’m sorry. I just…” Jumped to conclusions. Big surprise. “I’m sorry.

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

Jumping to Conclusions. You arbitrarily jump to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation. Two examples of this are “mind reading” and “the fortune teller error.” MIND READING: You make the assumption that other people are looking down on you, and you’re so convinced about this that you don’t even bother to check it out.