Monday, August 11, 2008

Trust

Trust... this word has so much meaning, so much importance. Every relationship has this as its basis. Without it there is seldom any meaningful thing, any meaning to a thing. If we think about hard enough about it, trust is present in every aspect of our life. If you do an adventure sport you place your trust on the person teaching you, if you are flying you place trust on the pilot and the airlines, if you are confiding in someone you place trust in them not to speak about it, if you are believing what a person says and does you are trusting them to never hurt you. Trust.

What do you do when someone you want to trust never gives you an opportunity to?
They say that you can trust only when you want to. But there are also times that though you want to place your trust in something or someone the reason to trust is taken away from you. You get close to the place you want to be at but suddenly you find that it has gone miles ahead of you again. You are running against a moving train that refuses to stop or slow down so you can catch up with it.

Trust can be used as a synonym for faith. It is a confidence, a belief that we have in someone or something that we have in the situation or the relationship. It is the faith we have in our actions along with the others that gets us to do things, take actions, and grow as people in our lives. Trust is a relationship of reliance, a relationship of the unknown, the statement that helps us move into the future. All we have when we take that once step forward is trust.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust
- Samuel Johnson


Trust is a binding characteristic, trait of relationships. I personally have never heard or seen of any relationship without one person having full trust on the other. It is important because it lets us lean on others, to depend on others, for love, for advice, for help. But trust involves major risk. There is never a point where trust is completely fool proof.

Trusting, when needed to be successful, especially between two people is generally a two way road. It is when both the parties are open to trusting the other. It is when you accept the risk that the trust can be broken, you have the belief that it will not be broken and have faith the other person is competent enough to keep the trust you have in them intact.

There are questions that will always arise like when is trust warranted? When do we know that our trust will never be betrayed? Does anyone or can anyone be completely, truly sure that their trust will not be broken by the person, the circumstance we are trusting?

But even with the confusion, the indecisiveness in our minds. Even with the risk we undertake, the faith we possess. Even with being aware of the possibility of being hurt, being scared, we trust. Because as someone said;

Without trust there is nothing.