about everybody things.

Everybody has them — “everybody” things and “me” things. I have them, always have. They show up in spades. My “me” things — idiosyncrasies and tiny rules about what I do — in some ways define me. One can appear so strikingly that some folks make an assumption. When Liz says anything about anything she’s talking about something that applies only to her. It happens. Really.

Everybody makes assumptions about how other people think and what it means.

Funny, when folks make assumptions that I only see “me” things, it happens most often about something I know deeply. It might be how children learn to read or how people process. I know when I see a certain look, hear a certain sound of agreement — a tone that says I’m humoring you. Folks who do that can’t see me, or they would know that I hear them.

Everybody misinterprets and misunderstands. Everybody gets misinterpretted and misunderstood too.

Everybody knows when we have done our best. We know also when we’re trying to make something work because we don’t want to do it over.

Everybody just knows some things. Who knows how we know some of them? Some things we just know. We know completely, deeply them because they came in our original packaging or we’ve lived them so long they have become a part of us. The final proof sits in our hearts, our heads, and our fingers.

Whether we trust that knowing seems to be a “me” thing.

Everybody has “me” things.

I have a “me” thing that says I only buy 3-5 books at a time unless it’s a book emergency. This “me” comes from knowing how long a book will last me and how I feel about the checkout process. I won’t go through the trouble for just 1 book, but with 6 books it’s likely 2 won’t get read because my interest could change before I get to them.

Everybody has “me” things they think are everybody things.

It probably starts when we are kids. If our family eats dinner at 6pm, we think That’s the way that all families do it. As we glimplse into other lives we realize such assumptions are more like sand than concrete.

Everybody makes assumptions . . . It’s a problem. We assume.

Assumptions often turn a “me” thing into an everybody thing. When someone does our “me” thing his or her way, we figure that person is different, difficult, resistant, not so smart, unyielding, stuck, or possibily, trying to push our buttons.

Everybody seems to make occasional faulty assumptions about some “me” thing. That causes miscommunication. Then everygody has feelings. Those feelings rush to protect “me” things. The feelings are “me” things. Contrary to belief not everybody hurts over stuff like that.

If only we could know our “me” things, everybody would be better at the everybody things we do.

Of course, not everybody cares what I think. Caring is always a “me” thing — we decide that for ourselves.

What’s an everybody thing to you?