What you see influences how you think

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me about a wedding life of Mr. Tarkie (not a real name). Mr. Tarkie is my old friend. That friend of mine asked me because she thought that I knew all about his life. She thought that Mr. Tarkie's wedding life was problematic. She thought he divorced his wife. I was shocked. I didn't even know about it. I asked her about how she got that information. She said that there were no more recent posts or pictures of him and his wife on all of his social media. So she made a conclusion that something wrong happened to his life with his wife. What a careless conclusion!

That way of concluding is just ridiculous. Looking at your friends' social media posts or uploads can make you become a ridiculous conclusion maker. It's fine when you make a good conclusion. For example, you see a photo of your friend's son holding up a trophy. Maybe you will conclude that that boy is a smart boy because he can be the winner of a contest. Or you can conclude that the parents must be proudly happy to have that son.

But what if you conclude in a different way? You know that your friend posting that photo has 2 sons. One son, with the trophy, goes to a favorite school, while another son is not very special because he goes to a school which is not famous at all. You will conclude like this: "How could the mom/dad post that photo? Okay, fine, they may feel proud. But can they imagine how the other son feels if he looks at that photo? Will he feel proud or hurt? Do the parents forget that they have another son?" Anyway, this kind of conclusion depends on the empathy and sensitivity of others. Not all people can make that kind of conclusion.

Let's go back to what my friend has concluded about Mr. Tarkie's wedding life. Mr. Tarkie used to upload photos with his wife when he was newly wed. I think that's normal for a person to do that if he is active on social media. Later on, he seldom uploaded his togetherness with his wife. He chose to often upload photos about his journey and interest. For me, I never made any conclusion about his personal life when I see those uploaded photos. I just look at them as an entertainment. Not more.

So, when a friend of mine came to me with that ridiculous conclusion of Mr. Tarkie's divorce, I was making a conclusion that her way of making conclusion is really out of the box! :)