Trust Issues

A dog when he comes to you despite that fact that he has been hurt by hundreds of other human beings is trust. I have a notion of perfect trust where the slate is clean with no scratches and existing chalk dust. In the real world which is not possible. We all have scars and scratches in the form of heartbreak and broken trust. Does this mean we stop trusting?

As a human being we tend to learn from our past experiences which are an asset but sometimes it feels like a curse too. Why does my experience with person A influences the way I perceive person B? We spend most of the time with one person and that is our own self. The lies we have told to our own self and the wrong we have done against our nature to do right. They haunt and affect our judgement the most. Can you even think that you know someone else more than you know yourself? We know ourself, or so we think and we create opinions and generalize every other human being under the same category. This limited analytics and analysis is not just foolish but blasphemous. We need to understand and internalize the crude fact that just because all human beings have two eyes, red blood and walk on two legs are not the same. We are all independent and unique creation. I can put it simply this way that either everyone is the same or everyone is unique there is no other way we can categorize life.

I’ve a few thought experiments which I want you to observe around yourself.

First, let’s say a person as a child has been fooled by other older kids in his neighbourhood. His lunch was looted and money stolen. He grows into an adult and he has a constant fear of losing his possessions and is thus very careful in doing any transaction, cares about every penny he has and so on. His current behaviour is a direct result of his past experiences. This cannot be classified as bad or good but the victim and the society who did this are both at a loss. The person has the problem of trusting other with anything of value and society has one hard person to deal with. The survival instinct that kicks in every time he is dealing with someone is a good thing or a bad thing? Will that person be able to trust anyone again ever? Is he at peace with his current state of mind? What can he do to move ahead and have a better quality of life?

Second, a person who has cheated on her partner. What is his state of mind? His fear in a relationship is being cheated upon. All positives and good bonding are nothing when his insecurities and fear kicks in. This kind of tendency can be observed mostly in people who have cheated themselves or in people who have been cheated by their partner. Now they are paranoid about every action their new partner takes which in turn poisons their relationship. Is this person living a healthy life? What does he/she need to do to fix this and be able to trust others?

The point I want to make here is that there are countless such emotions within us which are blocked and malfunctioning like these. We all have such trust issues. It is when we find a way to fix our trust issues and help other fix theirs the world can be a better place. I propose that we understand each other with as much compassion as we can, in a light that we all have a little puppy inside of us who is afraid and insecure, who is not sure about you and about the world. If we are able to do that we can better reason about the action of others and be more understanding and forgiving. At all cost we should avoid being selfish and impose our will on someone, give them the nourishment, the sunlight, the water, the air and everything else they need to grow, just don’t force them. Have patience, have compassion, let them be, just help them grow. If we can do this to one life, may it be your own, I think this life will be blessed.

There is so much more to write but signing off for next time. :)