For my fellow anxiety and OCD sufferers, we all know how debilitating it can be to exist within our heads. The smallest shift in tone can cause a day of spiraling and wondering if we’ve done something wrong, and we can hyper-fixate on every interaction we have, overanalyzing ourselves to make sure we didn’t say something that could offend or be misinterpreted. It’s a vicious cycle and without super conscious effort, which sometimes can include therapy and medication, it’s a viciously challenging cycle to break. In my cases, it has also almost always caused self-fulfilling prophecies, where my hyper-anxious state has done the opposite of what I intend but has annoyed or frustrated others because I would constantly be seeking reassurance and positive reinforcement that I’m still liked. It would even sometimes make me lash out in response, when there was nothing even to respond to in the first place.
While doomscrolling TikTok recently, I came across a video that I immediately saved, downloaded, and have since watched probably a thousand times.
When I say this guy has life figured out, I truly mean it.
Hanlon’s razor, of writer Robert J. Hanlon, simply states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Now, for my own purposes, I swap stupidity out as needed, because most of the people I know I would not classify as stupid.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by misunderstanding.”
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.”
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
Frankly put, not everyone is out to get you. More often than not, people are too preoccupied with their own lives to be actively conspiring against us. Not every text unreturned means that person hates you, not every misunderstanding is due to a problem on your end. Our lives are typically not at the center of anyone else’s, so we are thought of far less than we’d like to think. We are all victims of the spotlight effect from time to time. Barring consistent patterns of disrespect, awkward or uncomfortable situations are far more likely to be coincidences or due to mindlessness than they are to active hatred or conspiracy.
Hanlon’s Razor, as a pragmatic heuristic for everyday reasoning, reminds us to take a moment to reflect on whether or not this is truly an act of spite against us, or if it is simply our minds centering us in everyone else’s worlds. Some people say that the active implementation of this philosophy in your daily life can strengthen and deepen your relationships, and improve your self confidence as well as your confidence in others. When you give yourself a break from assuming everyone is out to get you, you can breathe a little bit easier.
Let’s say you have a friend who hasn’t responded to you in days. You’re going through a hard time and need the support, and you’ve texted her and called her multiple times with no response. It’s way too easy to immediately jump to the usual self-centered thinking, that she doesn’t care about you or that she’s intentionally not prioritizing your friendship. But then you hear from her a week later, and she tells you she’s sorry for not getting back to you quicker, but that she was having a really difficult time at home and that she herself was really struggling. When you reframe your thinking, you’ll come to learn that it is usually not about you.
Hanlon’s razor also frees you from the catastrophization of overthinking. Since implementing this mindset, it has grown into implementing another: if there’s a problem, you’ll either communicate that to me or you won’t. If you do, we can work through it and address it, and if you don’t, then there is no problem. It borrows from Stoicism, the idea that we should only focus on what we can control, which is ourselves. We cannot control if someone else is upset and chooses not to communicate that, and we cannot force someone to want to fix the problem if there is one. All we can do is be receptive to the conversation should it arise and own where we may have done wrong.
This idea also draws from existentialist thought, particularly Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion that much of our suffering comes from assigning meaning to actions that may, in reality, be indifferent to us. We don’t just want control over how others perceive us, we NEED it. But the truth is that most people act based on their own internal world, not as a direct response to ours. When we accept this, when we relinquish the illusion that we are at the center of every social interaction, we move toward a freer, less burdened existence.
As briefly mentioned above, however, it must be emphasized that this mentality should not become an excuse, or crutch, for moral and social laziness. When behaviors become a pattern, they do not need to be harmfully directed towards you in order to have a negative impact on you. The beauty in Hanlon’s razor is that it allows you to remove the personal emotion from the situation and free your mind from unknown fears and anxiety. It does not tell you that all behavior is excused. If you find that there is a consistent pattern of disrespect or harm done to you, even if it may not be intentional and personally directed towards you, it still warrants recognition on your end.
Ultimately, Hanlon’s Razor is about freeing yourself - not just from misplaced fears, but from the burden of assuming responsibility for every ambiguity. In doing so, you allow yourself to engage with the world more openly, without the weight of imagined betrayals and self-fulfilling prophecies.
Hanlon’s razor also made an appearance in my piece ‘how i’m spending my final year of my twenties,’ so if you enjoyed this, check that out for more!
To read more about Hanlon’s razor, visit The Decision Lab and check it out for yourself!