You're walking down the street one day and a perfect stranger walks by. As you pass him, he looks you straight in the eye and smiles.

"What a wicked smile!", you think to yourself.

You draw your own conclusions.

The facts are simply a stranger walking by looks at you and smiles. Yet, in your mind you have to answer why. You have to give it a meaning that is compatible with your beliefs. You have to interpret the events.

You are playing in a singing circle and one of the players is sitting looking at you intently.

"He's thinking that I can't play well!", you say to yourself.

You draw your own conclusions.

You have become a mind reader.  You are playing in an imaginary world. Your imagination gives you unproven conclusions.

The fact is you can never know what is going on in another persons's mind. Even when they actually say something in explanation, they are not telling you everything.

Too many of our motives for doing something are very complex. Add to that the belief that society frowns on the expression of feelings and you make things even more complicated. We may hide our feelings, but for different reasons.

In our daily lives, we seem to think that anything that happens around us should be easily understood.

I call this the sitcom syndrome. Movies and TV shows have a clear beginning and conclusion. The situation is resolved by the end of the show.

A TV show is just the manipulation of words and images to tell you a story and guide your thinking, your mind,  to a chosen conclusion, while entertaining you. The medium is the message. TV networks need to sell themselves.

When we do or think something, we do it for many reasons. Not just one.  Only we can know what those reasons are.

For example, you may take a job because you like the type of work, it pays well,  you have a family to support, you have to pay for your daily needs, you are specifically qualified, for the prestige involved.  And, in your mind, you may only be focusing on the one reason, while all of these other reasons act somewhere in your subconscious. And, you may not be giving them as much importance as the reason you are focusing on at the moment.

So, even when we are asked to explain a behaviour, we, ourselves may not be fully aware of all the reasons for that behaviour, even though the person asking is expecting a specific, single answer.

And, since we often know that we are expected to provide a simple answer, that is what we attempt to do. The first reason out of our mouth tends to be the one everyone latches on to .

Images and words are tools to manipulate understanding. If we choose to dramatize our thoughts and observations for our friends and family, then we are likely to dramatize those same events for ourselves.

A smile is just a smile. It is your mind that chooses to put a interpretation to it. If we choose to live in the now a smile is just a smile.

To interpret something is to rely on past experience, to choose what WAS over what IS.

Today is a new day. That is neither good nor bad.  Only your mind can make it one or the other.