Trust is an extremely important concept. But it isn’t just theory or a philosophical construct because trust permeates our interactions and colors our relationships. Trust is also a two edged sword – your trust of others, others trust of you. It is not automatically a reciprocal situation. I don’t believe there is anything remotely reciprocal about trust.
It is often said that trust is earned. True. But what is required for trust to exist? While it will appear sophomoric, I believe it’s important to have a common definition to work from. For sake of this discussion, I turned to Webster who defines trust as: firm belief in the honesty, reliability of another, faith. Further definition includes: confident expectation, hope. From this foundation we can conclude that trust becomes a powerful basis in our interactions.
We can also conclude that this foundation, that the basis is experientially understood. I seriously doubt that anyone would trust another simply on their words alone. Thus time is a component in the development of trust. One interaction would not suffice to credit another with trust.
Simple question – who, what do you trust? As you look back on the person/idea what led you to trust? Are there a lot of people/ideas in which you place your trust? And equally important – has your trust ever been betrayed? How did you handle this… or didn’t you? We’ve basically been talking about trusting others… but… another question: do you apply the same standards to yourself, to be a trustworthy person, as you do to others?
