Challenging Assumptions (Without Knowing Where They Are)

I have a sign on my desk that says:

Challenge All Assumptions.

I put it there after someone gently pointed out that I had made one.
Which is funny—because if I’d known I was making it, I probably wouldn’t have.

That’s the problem with assumptions.
They don’t announce themselves.
They don’t feel like guesses.
They feel like the way things are.

The longer I’ve sat with this sign, the more impossible it seems to challenge assumptions in isolation. Outside of relationship. Outside of reflection. Outside of being surprised by someone else’s reality brushing up against mine.

How do you question what’s doing the questioning?

I think assumptions live inside the stories we’re already living by.
And stories are efficient. They save energy. They fill in gaps. They help us move through the world without stopping every five seconds to ask, Wait—what is happening?

So instead of trying to catch assumptions directly, I’ve started watching where they leave fingerprints.

Sometimes it’s the music I’m drawn to when I build a playlist without thinking.
Sometimes it’s the post I stop scrolling on—that one—the one my thumb hesitates over before I even know why.
Sometimes it’s the tone I read into a sentence that technically doesn’t contain it.

None of this is random.
But it’s not fully conscious either.

It’s like my subconscious is speed-running my inner weather and leaving clues behind.

And if I slow down—if I look back at what I was noticing—I can sometimes see the shape of the assumption that was quietly steering.

Not to fix it.
Not to get rid of it.
Just to notice it.

Which makes me wonder if challenging assumptions isn’t really about confrontation at all.
Maybe it’s about curiosity.
About noticing what’s already drawing our attention—and asking, gently:

What story am I living inside right now?

And then smiling a little when the answer changes.