Trust: Tried and True Traitor

Ever considered handing over your bank card, along with your password, to a stranger and trusting that person to simply hang on to it and return it to your mailing address in a week?  What are the odds you would ever see that card again?  Slim to none.  Some of us wouldn’t hand over our bank cards to a family member, let alone a stranger.  It seems with our money, we’re extremely cautious.  With our hearts…not so much.   We’re much quicker to trust others with our hearts.  But should we be?  Why do we so badly need to trust others?

Just how trustworthy is this phenomenon we call trust?  We say one must earn trust…that once trust is breached, it cannot be restored.  We place such great emphasis and expectation on such a tiny little word.  We “trust” our best friend not to “spill the beans” on our most shielded secret.  We “trust” our spouse to be faithful to only us, and never want another,  for the remainder of our time on this planet.  We “trust” our religious leaders to live the life we, ourselves, cannot possibly duplicate.  We “trust” our family members to be there for us anytime, anywhere, every time, everywhere.  And when those “trusted” people fail us – and they have in the past, as they will in the future – we allow ourselves to play victim, our hearts to break, and our perceived “perfect” image of them to be exposed for the fraud it is.  I wrote a previous post on trust, believed in it, and once took the concept of trust at face value.

I didn’t over-think it…until now.

Do we trust simply because we need to?  Is trust an illusion we create to cradle us from the devastation of reality?  Do we simply need an insurance policy for our heart?

Each and every one of us is human.  Regardless of how much trust another places in us, we will, forever and always, look after number one first.  This trait is one that has kept the species thriving for centuries…a trait that is not possessed solely by mankind, but by every living species on Earth.  When a member of the animal kingdom turns on another, we call it the “circle of life.”  But when a human acts in his best interest (without regard for another), we call it “untrustworthy.”  Punishment: Social Exile.

As human beings, we will always act in the best interest of ourselves.  If we’ve committed some wrong-doing (whether it be adultery, flirting, stealing, lying, backstabbing, etc.), we’ll go to extreme measures to keep that wrong-doing hidden behind the dark cloak of  night – so hidden that no one will ever stumble upon it. This is why they say a little white lie will grow and grow…it grows because we’re in the throes of hiding our previous lie…at all costs.   And if, by chance, someone does stumble over our transgression, we’ll deny…deny…deny until slammed with hard proof.  But only then will we admit our mistake.

We’ve all lied.  We’ve all cheated…something OR someone.  We’ve all protected ourselves from getting caught with our “hand in the cookie jar.”  So, we know that we, ourselves, aren’t infallibly trustworthy.  We know – somewhere in the closets of our mind – that we have wronged someone…something.  Yet, we still choose to entertain the concept of trust, project that trust onto someone who will (one day) breach it, and insist that we, too, can be trusted with anything…everything.  The human mind is just one complicated trap after another, it seems. 

We give trust “honestly.”  We accept trust “honestly.” – All the while lying to ourselves about our human capability of breaching that trust given the right circumstances.  Maybe the idea of trust is simply a self-preservation method.  Maybe we feel “safer” with a person if we include them in our “circle of trust.”  But the reality is every person we trust is capable of breaking that trust.  When they do, we feel betrayed and angry.  Our perception of that person has been shattered.  We feel we no longer know our traitor.  This leaves us feeling alone.  Nothing terrifies us more than being alone.  So, to avoid confronting that fear, we do most anything to cover our imperfect humanity with idealistic expectations, or trust.  We convince ourselves that those we choose to trust are somehow superior and incapable of committing a transgression against us.  But sooner or later, that trust collides head-on with humanity, and we’re left wondering how this “trusted” person could have hurt us…not put US above themselves…been so selfish…

How incredibly human of them!

When we put ourselves first and breach another’s trust, we’re acting out of selfishness.  When we trust others not to hurt US, regardless of the cost, we’re also acting out of selfishness.  So, even when we think we’re selflessly trusting or being trusted, our core motivation is self-serving.  However, we choose to deny that reality and lie to ourselves.  Why?  Simply put…the illusion makes us feel better than the reality.

Without the illusion of trust, we must see our loved ones unmasked as the imperfect humans they are, rather than the Photoshopped images we’ve created in our minds.  And ironically, when our trust is breached, we tend not to be understanding, not to remember that we too breach trust, not to forgive…instead, we tend to hold a grudge, to be hypocritical, to forget that we are equally guilty at times, and to ban our transgressor from our lives.

So, I wrestle with this idea of trust…an illusion we create to give ourselves a blind sense of security…but a necessary evil all the same.  We must trust those close to us in this life…to a point.  Otherwise, misery, suspicion, and solitude are inevitable.  Maybe the secret lies in trusting our loved ones to be the best human beings they can be, expecting fallacies, not judging those fallacies (as we have our own), and being ready and willing to forgive.

And celebrate our imperfection.

We will have stones thrown our way many times over in this life, just as we will throw stones.  Our strength is determined by our understanding that these stones are flying without aim in every direction on any given day…sometimes we dodge them, sometimes we get hit square in the face.  But all in all, it’s just a stone…a weak imperfection in the mountain of life.  Our job…keep climbing.

Trust is a fragile and fickle illusion, but a necessary one just the same.

Chick Hughes