Time for Trust

Lately,I have talked to a few people that I trust,and they have since told me that they thought the insight that I had about whatever we were talking about was valuable.  This was encouraging to me,and because of that I have decided to make an attempt to update this with some sense of regularity.  However,because I always try to think things through very well before I say them,writing them down is doubly difficult. People know that you have to spent more time writing things then speaking them.  This means that not only have you thought about what you wrote but you valued what you had to say enough to put it to paper (or in this case,the canvas of information that is the internet) and that you expect that others will be better off having read it.  Thus,I hope that what I say will be interesting or useful to you.

It has become clear to me now that more than anything,we are supposed to trust everyone as much as we can rationally do so. The point of this is not to blindly trust whoever with whatever,though.  I think that trust is the basic currency of relationships.  In the realm of friendship,more often the not the people that I care about the most are the people that I trust the most.  For those of us who believe in God,faith by definition is the trust that we have that there is a God,and that what he has said to us through the bible (or other means) is true.  You could say that the words faith and trust are synonymous. In fact,faith,hope,and love are all high trust requisite things.  So we see that trust is very important.  Placing your trust in someone is not always easy,though.  Placing trust in someone always opens up a vulnerability in yourself.  It is not unlike leaving your front door unlocked when you go out for a walk.  While you are gone,anyone could come in and take anything they wanted.  But you also avoid the hassle of having to carry your keys.  In the same way,trusting other people allows us to share or lift the burdens that we otherwise carry ourselves,and usually the burdens weigh us down more than a keyring.  Vulnerability can be a frightening concept.  What bothers me more then that,though,is the fear of letting someone who trusted me down.  I believe that most other people are the same way too. 

Whenever you put your trust into a number of people,you are bound to get hurt.  While that may seem a little bit cynical,people are inevitably human.  I know that there have been times where I have violated someone’s trust,and caused them pain. I am no stranger to the receiving end either.  But in my case,the benefits have always outweighed the price I paid.  By learning to trust other people,I enrich myself,but I also help them to trust people.  In this way we can hugely benefit from this simple practice.  For the people that are closest to me,  I want to be able to trust them recklessly and relentlessly.  I want to believe in them enough to make them believe in themselves and do great things.  I want to be able to say that even if you disappoint me,I will still trust you with things that are most dear to me.  That is a goal that I have.  And I’m not trying to be a better person then anyone else,I just want to see if I can make a positive difference in the world.   Thus,I will strive for my goal of relentless trust,and expand that as far as my rationality will allow. 

Now will you see me bare the inner depths of my soul here?  Maybe I should start with a few closer friends then just thrust myself out into cyberspace.

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