Trust

Definition: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed.

I think trust has taken quite a beating in the world at the moment. Whether it’s in situations regarding religion, politics, economics, even basic humanity... trust seems to be absent. I guess it is justified to some extent as bad things have happened but then again if no one makes an effort to regain that trust again... well where are we all going to end up?

Thinking back on my life, who have I personally really and truly trusted? In my younger years; I would say it was basically anyone in my life at that time, I guess I was very trusting as a child. During my teenage years, I still had trust in my parents, some teachers/mentors, my best best best friend during those particular years (seriously we’ve all had those moments! :P), still a large proportion of the community but not on the same scale as when I was a child. Now in my early twenties, that circle of trust has closed in further (though I am constantly led to believe otherwise, lol) to close family and friends and reliable colleagues and mentors. Someone who I thought I always had faith in regardless of the circumstances was God. But I realised that even that trust had also faltered a little when I was dealing with Aisha’s situation a few years ago.

Spending time with my family, I realised there was a big difference between ages, which reinforced my notion of age Vs trust. The younger members of the family i.e. infants and so forth had so much trust in the other people to look after them, make them happy, feed and clothe them etc. Whilst the elder members were not so trusting, even on the smallest things; “Are you sure the heating is at the right temperature? Is there sugar in this tea? This isn’t the right way to do such and such!”, lol. Ok so I’m taking the mickey there a little... :)

But really why is it that as we get older, we learn to trust less and less? It’s like there is a negative correlation between the older we get against the level of trust we have. Compared to a small child, who puts their trust in everyone, does society trust less because they're coloured by the experiences they’ve had or do we naturally get more cautious as time goes by? Do we simply see ourselves as superior compared to other fellow human beings and that no one can do it better than us, so why bother trusting in the first place. What is it that stops us from putting our faith in other people? Anyone got any ideas?