When I was a sophomore in college I had to do an internship over Christmas break at a child behavioral center in Des Moines, IA. I was currently going to school in Canton MO. The distance between the two is around 200 miles. 

When I called to tell my parents that I would be doing this internship, my mom immediately said, “well dad and I will buy you a plane ticket so that you can fly there and not have to worry about driving all that way.”

At the time we didn’t have GPS on our phones. I would have had to read a map, and navigate on my own across a couple states in places I’ve never been. I’m not sure it would have been a good experience for me to struggle through that without a cell phone, but at the time, I really thought I should have been old enough to try. 

I’m 100% aware that my parents didn’t mean any harm when they suggested that I fly, but it felt like they were saying that they didn’t trust me and that I wasn’t smart enough or capable enough to figure it out. That’s the way I had interpreted it anyway. They just bought me the ticket and took me to the airport. 

For over 20 years, I equated their buying of the plane ticket with them not having any confidence in me.  Just recently, while sitting in Hawaii with some of my friends sipping coffee in the cool hours of the morning, I was able to let go of that interpretation of that experience. 

My friend, Brandi, said, after she heard the story, “Callie, that’s not how I see that at all. I think your parents meant nothing more than they didn’t want you to have to be nervous about driving all that way, and that they could fix that for you with a plane ticket.”

I know it sounds crazy, but her interpretation of that set me free. I had never thought of it in that light. Brandi couldn’t believe that I had seen it any other way. That’s the only way that she was able to see it. And for me, there was no other reality other than the way I had been viewing for the previous 20 years. 

The realization of my potential misinterpretation of that event, changed so much for me. I started thinking of all of the experiences of my life and my assumptions about how others felt in those stories. 

I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to assume that I knew everything about everyone’s actions and motivations anymore. Most of us hope that we aren’t that way, but think back to the last time you were upset at someone else. Is it possible that the other person didn’t have the intention that you assumed they had? Is it possible that the whole situation came from something they were dealing with and had nothing to do with you? Is it possible that they said/did those things because they assumed that you wanted them to? Is it possible that there was no malicious thought at all? Is it possible? 

I now think it’s always a possibility. 

There’s a shirt in our store that may be one of my favorite ideas because of exactly this. The shirt is a simple 3 dots on the front for the points of ellipses, and the back says, “There’s Always More.” This little card comes with every shirt. It’s my reminder of who I want to be…