Suspicious
I've had several recent experiences where it became obvious that another person mistrusted me, not because the person knew me or had any reason to mistrust me but because I was a stranger. It got me thinking about trust. I thought of an experience several years ago when the young daughter of a friend made it clear that she had been taught never to trust a stranger. I thought of my own youth and tried to remember an instance where I automatically mistrusted. I thought of Ronald Reagan's admonition to trust but verify. I thought about a time, not so long ago, when a handshake was enough to engage in business with a person and compared it to now when a voluminous written agreement may not be enough. And I wondered what has happened, what has made us mistrustful, what has changed.
In part, it must be our collective experiences, shared in the newspapers and television, of people in high places who didn't deserve our trust. Corporate executives, politicians, entertainers have all abused our trust. It must also include our experiences with prominent criminals who abused the trust of innocents. It must also be the various personal experiences, that I hear about more often, of faithless companions and untrustworthy associates, of managers and co-workers alike who demonstrate themselves to be untrustworthy. But whatever it is, it produces unfortunate effects for all of us.
When we must distrust everyone we don't know, when the burden of proving oneself trustworthy grows, when we require voluminous documentation, agreements and statutes to make ourselves feel safe, it slows progress in all relationships. At worst, we lose our ability to trust anyone; at best, we are slow to trust. It also causes people to mistrust us. In the strange way we have in dealing with other people, if they don't trust us we find it difficult to trust them.
I was taught to trust others, to look for the best in others. I am one of those who more often than not believe that a handshake is enough, better in many circumstances than a complicated written agreement. Yet I know that not everyone is worthy of trust, that we shouldn't do business with many people no matter what the basis of the arrangement. There's no contradiction here: This simply means that there are untrustworthy people, as there always have been. We must, of course. identify those people and shun them. But this is a different reaction from what I see now in many people: They seem to believe that few if any people are trustworthy, that we should approach everyone with suspicion until some few people meet the burden of establishing their honesty. While my attitude may seem naive, it has the merit of trying to bring out the best in others, of encouraging better behavior and of treating people with respect. The modern attitude may cause us to experience fewer instances of breach of trust but it also keeps us from experiencing much of anything. It deters us from knowing others, it delays or prevents the formation of business and personal relationships and it produces mistrust in others.
Let's try to select the right people and trust them. We'll be happier and others will behave better toward us.
8-30-04
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