Giving benefit of doubt has almost always helped me throughout my life. Sometimes we can’t see all the possibilities and end up assuming whatever seems obvious to us, which can be far from the truth.

“Benefit of doubt” here means, also thinking about other possibilities of the situation instead of just believing whatever seems obvious. For example, let’s say you are calling your friend and she is not picking up your call. Now, instead of thinking you are no more a priority for her, that’s why she’s picking up the phone, we can also think that she might be busy with something important like meeting etc. or not in a situation to pick up the call like driving etc.

We all have our own biases in the way we look at any situation. Sometimes we see a situation in a particular way, becoming blind to all other possibilities and end up tackling the situation the way we may regret later. Benefit of doubt helps here.

I am not conveying that reality will always be different than what seems obvious, but at least it’s worth thinking about all the possibilities before taking a step.

We can also somewhat compare “benefit of doubt” and “positive thinking”. Though one difference between them is, “benefit of doubt” simply tells us to look at all other possibilities and “positive thinking” tells us to only look at the positive side of things.


Possibilities

Habit of always thinking about all other possibilities may make our decision making process slower and sometimes more complex, but it’ll save us from our biases and give us a chance to think again about our decisions.

And fact is, the real world is actually much more nuanced and complex than we realize. So, it makes sense to see all the possibilities. Because it’ll take some effort to think about other possibilities, our brain tries to quickly jump to conclusions instead of giving it a thought and seeing the full picture.

Most likely, we all have experienced cases where we were terribly wrong about a situation and when it turned out that we were wrong, we end up thinking why other possibilities did not cross our mind. I think it’s because of our biases in our thinking patterns.

We might not realize this, but we sometimes think about a situation in a certain way. And that way is based on our past experiences, our upbringing and our background. That’s called the bias. Our biases stop us from giving it a second thought.


Kindness

It’s also kind to see other possibilities, when something seems obvious. We all love a kind person. When other people will come to know that, we thought about other possibilities and did not take the obvious action, we will get a special place in their heart.

And also, when it’ll turn out that reality was far different than what we were thinking, we will thank ourselves for thinking about all the possibilities and not taking the seemingly obvious action.

Again it’s worth repeating that, it’s not like reality will always be different than what seems obvious, but there’s no harm in thinking about all the possibilities before taking a step.