Assume: –to take granted or without proof; suppose; postulate; posit (www.dictionary.com)
Assume: –accepting as true without question or proof (Cambridge Online Dictionary)
I believe many of us including me fall into the trap of assuming things that we are unsure or not clear of. It is so easy to assume with a blink of an eye and without much effort that some of us might be doing it without realising it. Assuming provides us with short term happiness but in fact it creates a living time bomb that may explode anytime.
Given this scenario at work where you are doing some project but you are unsure of certain details. But you are feeling lazy and weak that day to clarify on the details. So you ASSUME those details in your own perspective and continue with your proposal. You happily submit your ASSUMED proposal to your boss and return to your office ASSUMING that your boss will be pleased just because you handed up your proposal on time. After one or two weeks of short term happiness, your boss suddenly barges into your office and slams the proposal onto your table. And tadah! You are back to square one because of your brilliant ASSUMPTION.
Assumption makes life easier and less stressful for us. Like in Physics, when we are solving questions, we always assume that air resistance is negligible or friction can be ignored to make the problem less problematic and less complicated. But in real life, these little details can cause the loss of a life or a malfunction in machinery.
So the morale of the story is to assume less and ask more. I will end this post with a favourite phrase of mine from my Chemistry teacher during my JC days: Assume makes an ass out of you and me (ass-u-me).