Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 32

Look for the spin

It’s clearly not intelligent or clear thinking to jump to conclusions. When you’re listening to an argument or working out a practical problem, you know you need to guard against it. But socially it’s an easy trap to fall into in ways that make you feel unnecessarily bad about yourself.

Every so often, I’ll remember that I haven’t been in touch with one particular friend or another for what seems like a long time. Whenever this used to happen, I would mentally tick myself off for being a bad friend and think how unappreciated they must be feeling. Not any more though, because I now remind myself that if we haven’t spoken for six months, that means they haven’t tried to contact me either. I’m not feeling forgotten ...