Reflective Journal: Stop, Breathe and Verify

Forewords

The reason of starting this journal is detailed in my previous post. So I'll simply say on this occasion that I'm writing this series to countermanding my tendency to react to unverified facts.

Journal 1

"When you respond to something done by a person whose previous similar behaviour left you with a strong negative impression, you are more than likely to "see" things that would confirm your negative impression but are in fact disconnected with the facts. So stop, breathe and verify."

We were in an email session to discuss a non-refundable purchase. One of us (A) once overstepped my autonomy which made me wary of its reoccurrence.

On this particular occasion, we were going to either make individual purchases or group purchase. In the busy exchange of emails, some of us confirmed that we were going to fly solo, to which A did not respond. The next email we got from A was addressed to everybody "I've made the purchase. Here are the details!" I scrolled down and 'saw' that a non-refundable purchase was made for everyone in the group. In a moment of fury thinking that he overstepped my autonomy again, I emailed back.
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It wasn't an offensive email by all means. So by the time I read A's email again properly with all the images and texts displayed and confirm that A only purchased for himself, I was able to withdraw my previous email with a simple "sorry". But this could have all been avoided if only I read A's email slowly and without prejudice.