What Is Assumption Tax?

I once bought two white suitcases because of a woman I never spoke to. Within forty-eight hours of watching her cross a hotel lobby, I owned a matching set I didn't need, because some quiet part of me had decided she had her life together and I didn't.

That was assumption tax. And most of us are paying it every single day.

The suitcase that nearly cost me my personality

We were staying at the Stamford Plaza, the sort of hotel that makes you feel you should be a better person. The lighting is better than at home. The flowers look arranged by someone with generational wealth. And then she appeared, gliding across the lobby with a crisp white carry-on rolling beside her like it had its own publicist.

I did not want the suitcase. I wanted to be her. Not what she owned, but who I assumed she was.

So I bought two. Matching, obviously, because one was never going to cement the new me. None of it had anything to do with what I needed. It was one sentence doing the driving, and I never even said it out loud.

So what actually is assumption tax?

Assumption tax is the price you pay for acting on a story you never checked.

Most people think of assumptions as the obvious ones. I assumed the meeting was at ten. I assumed you were picking up dinner. Those are harmless. The dangerous ones live deeper. They are the sentences sitting in the basement of your brain running the electrical system: I am behind. I should already know this. That opportunity is not for people like me.

You do not see them. But everything is powered by them.

And here is the uncomfortable part. An assumption does not need to be true to shape your life. It only needs to be believed. Once you believe it, your brain starts collecting evidence to back it up. Decide you are always left out, and you will notice every moment that looks like exclusion.

The four ways assumptions are quietly costing you

Relationships. Half the fights people have are not about what happened. They are about what someone decided it meant. Someone does not text back. The fact is they did not text back. The assumption is they do not care. React to the assumption instead of the fact, and you are no longer in a relationship with a person. You are in one with the story you wrote about them.

Decisions. We say no to things we never properly considered because we assumed they were too expensive, or that we were not qualified, or that the answer would be no anyway. We also say yes to things we should refuse because we assumed boundaries make us selfish. Your life is built on decisions. If your decisions are built on unchecked stories, that is not power. That is autopilot.

Productivity. "I should already know how to do this" stops you asking questions and pushes you into pretending. Should does not build anything. Start does.

Mental health. Your brain responds to what it thinks is happening, not only what is. An assumed threat fires a real stress response. You replay conversations, draft messages you never send, and defend yourself against arguments that never happened. That is a steep price for something you never checked.

How to stop paying

You cannot eliminate assumptions. Your brain is built to fill in gaps. The goal is to catch them in the act.

The comeback move is five words: what am I assuming here?

Ask it before the hard conversation. Before the email reply. Before the no, the yes, and the second matching suitcase. The question creates a pause, and a pause is often enough to stop you paying.

Then challenge what you find with real questions, not fake positivity. Is this true? Is it provable? And the big one: what would I do if this was not true?

Your one job this week

Pick one area you feel stuck in. Just one. Do not try to fix your whole life by Thursday.

Write down the honest sentence underneath it, the one you carry around but rarely say out loud. Then ask whether it is true, whether it is provable, and what you would do if it was not.

The suitcase story sits at the heart of Chapter 5 of my book 3, 2, 1 Done. If you want the full version, including the pair of pants that did not survive, listen to the Assumption Tax episode of the Bounce Back Better podcast.