The decision

You've got the argument and the method. What's left is to decide, and I'd like the decision to be one sentence.

When I take something personally, I write the other account before I believe mine, and if it matters, I ask.

Three parts.

The first is the notice. You've taken something personally. You'll know, because there's a reading with you in it and an evening starting. Catch that.

The second is the other account. One sentence, as specific as the reading, with their day in it, before you do anything else.

The third is the fork. If it matters and you're close, the check, once, about them, and accept the answer. If it doesn't matter or you can't ask, leave it, and take the evening back.

There's a form of planning that helps with rules like this, and it's been tested many times. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran reviewed ninety-four studies of it in 2006. You decide in advance what you'll do and when, in the form "when this happens, I'll do that", and people who plan that way follow through much more often than people who only hold the intention. So write three.

When I read an email or a message as being about me, I'll write one other account for it before I reply or reread it.

When someone I live with is quiet, I'll ask one question about their day and accept the answer.

When a stranger or an acquaintance seems short with me, I'll say "probably their day" and leave it where it happened.

What to expect. This is my expectation and not a finding. For the first week, the reading will arrive exactly as fast as it always has, and you'll write the other account afterwards, grudgingly, and the other account will feel like a story you're telling yourself to feel better. In the second week you'll check something, and the answer will be about their day, and you'll notice that it was exactly the account you'd written, and that will be the first time the method proves itself. Around the third week the other account will start turning up on its own, a second or two behind the reading, and the evenings will start to shorten. By a month, you'll have a list with a third column, and the third column will be mostly "not about me", and you'll have begun to trust it over the reading. You'll still take things personally. Everyone does. But it'll be a thing that happens and gets checked, rather than a thing that happens and gets the evening.