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I have resigned from my job. It was both a sudden and a long-awaited decision but I have no regrets in making it.

Easter signifies new life and new beginnings. Instead of looking at the ugly, I prefer to dwell on the many beautiful things I learned during the past year. I will post one lesson for each day this week and I hope you would learn from them as much as I did.

Lesson #1 – The Presupposition

James Martin, S.J. does a much better job of explaining this concept so I will quote his book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. It’s a book on how ordinary people can use the ideas in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises to live better lives. Forgive me for the length of the excerpt but it’s necessary to drive the point home.

From Chapter 10: More by Deeds Than by Words – page 234

Always give people the benefit of the doubt. What’s more, if you’re not sure what a person means, you should “ask how the other means it.”

It’s a key insight for healthy relationships within families, in the workplace, and among friends. And while most people would agree with it, in principle, we often do just the opposite. We expect others to judge us according to our intentions, but we judge others according to their actions.

In other words, we say to ourselves, “My intention was good. Why don’t they see this?” But when it comes to other people, we often fail to give them the benefit of the doubt. We say, “Look what they did!”

The Presupposition helps us remember the other person’s intention, which helps ground relationships in openness. You approach every interaction with an open mind and heart by presuming — even when it’s hard to do so — that the other person is doing his or her best and isn’t out to get you.

The Presupposition also helps to release you from grudges and resentments. It makes it less likely that you will approach a thorny relationship in terms of a battle. Rather than steeling yourself for another confrontation with your enemy, which takes a great deal of energy, you can relax.

Sometimes the other person is out to get you — for example, in a contentious office environment. But that doesn’t mean human interactions should be approached as battles. Instead of preparing for war, you can set aside your armor. This may help the other person feel better able to deal with you — because most likely you are part of the problem. The Presupposition steers you away from anger and so provides the other person with the emotional space needed to meet you on more peaceful territory. It may even invite him or her to change.

My mother once told me that at her local supermarket worked a checkout clerk who had a “mean look and a grumpy disposition.” None of the other clerks liked her. My mother remembered something her own mother had told her, another version of the Presupposition: “Be kind to everyone, because you never know what problems they have at home.” So my mother decided to shower the grumpy clerk with kindness and made it a point to talk with her whenever she could. In time, the woman softened. “I discovered,” said my mother, “that her mother, whom she cared for, was ill and that she herself had neck problems after a car accident.” You never know what problems people might have.

The Presupposition also helps you stay open to change, growth and forgiveness. Peter Favre, one of the first Jesuits, spent many years interacting with the new Christian denominations of his age. In that era Catholics and Protestants were intensely suspicious of one another. For many Protestants, Catholics were “papists”, Rome was “Babylon”, and the pope was the “Antichrist.” For Catholics, Protestants were simply heretics.

Favre adamantly refused to let those beliefs close his heart, which was extraordinary for the time. “Remember,” he wrote to a Jesuit asking for advice, “if we want to be of help to them, we must be careful to regard them with love, to love them in deed and in truth, and to banish from our souls anything that might lessen our love and esteem for them.” That is an astonishing comment in an era of bad feelings.

My favorite quote from Favre on the matter is even simpler:
“Take care, take care never to shut your heart against anyone.”

Openness will not cure every relationship, but it can provide an opening for change, and it certainly won’t make things any worse. The Presupposition can make healthy relationships healthier and unhealthy relationships less unhealthy.

—

Admittedly, this is a difficult concept to faithfully follow. There are some people that I may have misunderstood. Thinking back on them, I still feel giving them the benefit of the doubt to be quite a long shot. But James Martin is right. It’s the first lesson in this series because I know how hard it is for me to do this.

Ever since, I’ve been trying my best to “presuppose” people, most especially those whom I don’t know well personally. And I can tell that the first benefits are:

• I am happier than usual
• I worry less

That’s a result of me trying to focus on the good in others. I bet that if everyone (couples, best friends, employees) did this, then there’d be less stress on people’s relationships.

If you’re interested, you can buy the book in hardcover at National Bookstore branches at about 600+ pesos. I hope they release this in paperback too. This and Imitation of Christ would be an inspiring and enjoyable read while traveling.

 

Tomorrow’s lesson is inspired by the book “Mindset” by Carol S. Dweck Ph.D.