Change your interpretation, change your life.

Think about a conversation you've had with someone. Or a text or email that you've received, or a status update on social media. Now think how you interpreted it. Did you take it to be amusing, genuine, condescending, irritating, self-inflating, or just down right rude? If you interpreted it to be rude or condescending, your response will have been totally different to if you interpreted it to be amusing.

Life is very like this. We tend to listen to what someone says or watch what a person does and then we put our own interpretation on it. It doesn't matter much what the person actually meant by what they say or did, we act as if they meant what we think they meant by it.

Say your partner is working late (again) and the dinner you prepared is in the bin/oven/dog (again). You might interpret this to mean that he/she is having an affair, is avoiding you, is struggling at work, is dodging helping with the children, or possibly all of the above. In fact what you partner might be doing is trying to get extra money so you can afford that holiday you need, or to pay off the credit card bill.

You could interpret his/her lack of communication (if you'd known he/she'd be this late you'd have prepared a salad, or asked him/her to pick up a takeaway on the way home.) as rudeness or lack of respect. Or simply forgetfulness on their part. If you think that the person has simply genuinely forgotten or that it was probably the fault of the evil boss landing him with an extra urgent assignment half an hour before home time, you're going to feel less angry than if you partner has shown numerous times that he doesn't value your time or effort.

The key here is to find out what the person ACTUALLY means by their actions and then react. Rather than acting on what you think is happening (which might be completely the opposite to what IS actually happening).