Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Musings - On 'Trust'

You put a word like 'Trust' out there and ask what it means, you can be sure you'll get varying definitions and thoughts. Yet it's a word used easily and carelessly, and sadly damagingly too.


The deeper you look at it, more you realize it has several connotations.  Yet, the reason I'm even touching this today is because I heard this sentence in pretty close context, and it brought me face to face with atleast some of those connotations.

"There is nothing like complete trust, especially between two women" said someone I hold in high esteem.

I agree. (with the first half ). However, having agreed, I do not subscribe.

Is this then a matter of perception, is trust subjective? Yes, it seems to be so. It's more an attitude.

For deep-dive, I'll break the sentence into two. One, 'There is nothing like complete trust' and two, 'especially between women'.

The first is theoretically true,  there are after all no absolutes. Yet, I'd say...it's about how 'you' live life. Your attitude. 

Sure, if you put a gun to my head or worse, to a close ones head, maybe trust will go out the window. But is that how we want to live life. Living in trust is no guarantee that nothing painful or dangerous would ever happen to us. Such guarantees don't exist in life. It is rather a way of responding to life. What are the chances that someone will put that gun to my head.

Living in trust is a willingness to risk that, and maybe even risk the cost of being burnt once or twice, to the alternative of living in fear and letting that influence ones decisions and ones way of life.

We are so tuned into protection and defense that mitigating risk is a compelling need, and it adversely impacts life, especially relationships as that's where trust plays out.

In fact research indicates that when we repair lost trust, a relationship is even more robust than when trust is never broken. This research finding made so much sense to me. It values living with vulnerabilities, and reassures through knowing we can recover. This in fact enables more trust.

As for the second, 'especially among women', I'd say conditioning. It was likely true at one stage when men and women had role defined lives, men as providers and women as home makers. (lack of trust after all does come from insecurity), and I'd like to believe it's by and large a thing of the past.

Life is so much more beautiful with trust, than with fear. Paradoxically not easier maybe, but more beautiful and fulfilling. 

2 comments:

  1. Trust is the grease
    Strengthening bonding
    Trust is the scissor
    Breaking the bonding
    Continue to grease
    Up and untill
    It becomes scissors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Define trust and then seek to validate its existence. Trust means different things to different people at different times.

    ReplyDelete