I just Love a Good Story? Don’t you just Love a Good Story? Well, here is another good story.
Who Do You Trust?
What does the word “trust” mean to you? What does it mean to trust someone? Trust is the belief that someone will follow correct procedures, manage things in an ethical manner, or follow through on a promise. Trust involves a strong reliance on someone else. To trust someone means to let yourself go and put the procedure, or management of the idea or event in the hands of another. It means you turn over the reliance you have in yourself to someone else. How does a person do that? How can a person just release themselves and allow someone else to take over? The decision to trust someone can be based on past experiences with that person or a situation of similar circumstances. You asked your friend to pick up your kids from school and your kids were brought to you safe and sound, so you trust the person to do it again and with the same results. When we trust someone, we feel safe and comfortable with that person knowing the person will follow through, keep the word, keep the promise made.
A person makes him or herself untrustworthy by not following correct procedures, managing things in an unethical manner, or failing to keep a promise. What happens when we don’t or can’t trust? When we don’t trust, we believe the distrust to be part of the person’s character, and we judge the person on the incident forever. Even when they have made no other mistakes, we still remember the time when the person did not follow through on that one incident, big or small. We do not see the real problem, the cause that may inhibit a person from completing the promise. We make everything the other person’s fault. We don’t see the many other reasons, such as attending to their family, for the lack of follow through.
We are not born with the ability to trust or distrust. Trust is learned behavior. Distrust is also learned behavior. A component of trust is the ability to rely on someone else, put our hearts in the promise or the quality of another person. It can be difficult for one human to rely on another. Many of us rely on ourselves because we know we will manage it correctly. But we don’t know all the facts, the things we need to solve a particular problem, and under those circumstances, we must give ourselves to another person. This also stems from the fact that some of us don’t believe in other people. We don’t give them a chance to fail or do things correctly. Some automatically believe they should not put value in other human beings. This inability may come from a past event such as when, as a young child, an adult made a promise they did not keep. Or an adult made a promise about something very important, something the child really wanted to do, but the adult didn’t keep the promise. After an experience like that, it would be very difficult to put trust in another adult.
In my newest novel, A Change of Heart, (I don’t have a release date yet) my main character, Esther, does not trust. But it’s not other people she doesn’t trust. Esther does not trust herself. She lost her family, husband and son, in a gas explosion at their card shop, and she is afraid. She doesn’t trust those events or occasions that life brings, and she is afraid to take a chance. Instead, she works toward being with her family, where her husband and son are now and where her two-year-old daughter has been.
Who do you trust in your life? Please share your story or thoughts about trust.
That’s all for now. Until next month.
Love a Good Story 