Who Do You Trust?

I think it is a healthy exercise, especially in times like the present, to stop and think about how much we trust each other.

It is quite easy to be aware of who you don’t trust.  After all, they no doubt earned your mistrust through some act of word of deed which left a sensitive spot on our psyche.  For instance, it is very easy to mistrust our government, given the lies we have been told, the treasure they have plundered, and the freedoms they have curtailed.

Likewise, some businesses earn our mistrust by failing to deliver the goods and services you were led to expect — or by failing to stand behind them when something goes wrong.  Or, worst of all, luring us into outright scams.

We mistrust specific individuals with whom we have personal contact, for any number of reasons, real or imagined.

If we dwell on examples like those above, we could think of ourselves as not very trusting at all.

Until, that is, we stop to think about the number of people, many of them total strangers, we trust with our money, with our health, with our very lives.  And, we extend this trust constantly, hardly, if ever, even thinking about it.  In fact, it is hard to imagine life in a crowded world without it.  How few of us has the time, energy, or resources to perform “due diligence” on everyone we conduct business with.

We take it for granted that other drivers will stay on their side of the road and stop at stop signs and lights.  We take it for granted that the food we buy – at the grocery or in restaurants, is safe to eat.  We assume the professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) are qualified in their respective professions.

I submit that trust, like friendliness and respect, are the lubricants that make our most of our transactions with others go smoothly and pleasantly for all involved.  Indeed, we are by nature a trusting people.  And, most of us prefer that it stay that way.  Yet, trust is another character virtue that, like decency, honor, dignity, honesty, and self restraint, will soon be on the endangered list if things continue on their current course.

I grew up in a different America — one I’m afraid my descendants may never know.

In the America I grew up in, a “contract” was two people looking each other in the eye and shaking hands on whatever they were agreeing to.  Nothing else was needed, because to default on that unwritten contract mean a blow to one’s dignity and honor, and that, to most people, was far more important than whatever monetary or other value inherent in the contract.  As an aside, let me remind you that the signers of our Declaration of Independence pledged “their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor”.  Only honor being sacred, ergo of higher importance to them than even life and fortune.

As a child, my friends and I wandered about, pretty much anywhere we liked, at most any time of day, without the slightest notion that any person, of any ethnic or religious group, might want to intentionally harm us.

I remember when those neighbors who were “wealthy” enough to afford a home telephone would go off on vacation, leaving their homes unlocked in case a neighbor might need to use the their telephone while they were away.

As a teenager, we carried guns in our cars – the same cars we parked on the school grounds.  The guns were for hunting and nobody gave a thought to the notion that one of us might see fit to bring one into the school building and start blazing away.  Such things were just not done.

I can’t even imagine what might have happened had one or more of us decided to beat up a teacher or bus driver.  I can only assure you that we would have ended up far worse off than the person we set out to beat up.  Such things were simply not tolerated.

Yes my friends, we have come a long way from the levels of trust we once had in each other.  And, what is left continues to slip into oblivion.  What do we do then?  Do we simply cease to conduct business with each other?  Does not seem practical to me.  Do we somehow vet every person we presume to deal with, via some gigantic database that sees all, knows all, and, for a price, tells all?  Does this sound like a world we want to live in?  Not to me.

Then why are we letting this happen to us?  Have we become so dumbed down that we don’t realize that a free society cannot exist without trust?  I really do not think so.  Instead, I think we all know better.  And I think we all really do want to be able to trust each other.

Well, my friends, I have good news.  Unlike many of the things that are going wrong with America, this is one that we can fix all by ourselves.  Us.  You and me and millions of others just like us.  And it is the simplest thing one could ever hope for.

And, it is this:  If you want to help restore trust to America, all you have to do is be totally trustworthy yourself.

Well, that and shun those who prove themselves untrustworthy.

Just think of it – the power for change, right there in your own hands.

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