by J. James Reider

Created on: May 28, 2008

To trust someone is one of the most selfless things you can do. It takes a certain amount of love for that person to be able to extend yourself enough to risk emotional scarring and betrayal. My philosophy has always been to give someone new the benefit of the doubt, then after time, the possibility of earning my trust. Trust, however, can sometimes be quite similar to love, as in, sometimes it just happens. You get to know someone and you immediately feel confident enough to trust them. Or, maybe you just want to trust them so much, that it feels more natural to trust them than it does to doubt them.

When I find it difficult to trust someone, I take a long look at myself. I sometimes find myself wondering if my lack of trust in them is born from a lack of trust in myself. Is it because I might betray them? Or is it because I am so scarred from a past betrayal that I do not want to let my guard down so easily? Once that question is asked, I can usually find myself choosing one of those options. The third question is; Is this person just not worthy of being trusted at all? Most scenarios do not have me answering "yes" to that third question, though there have been a few. The most common answer, I've found, is that I do not trust myself. I have never in my life cheated or had an affair, but I also never had the opportunity. At least none that I have noticed. To not have the opportunity to overcome a challenge is sometimes an avenue for self doubt to creep in and haunt you.

It is unfortunate that more than half of the people that we trust with something will betray us. It makes our confidence in humanity plummet and makes this world not very nice to live on. Then again, if we could trust every individual that we meet, that would be kind of boring. We would not be so diligent in the relationships we choose and would most likely end up being unhappy for other reasons, as that is human nature.

Believing in trust is difficult too. We can say we trust someone, we can believe that we trust someone, but in the end, we still have that little bit of doubt creeping into our heads. That doubt that says, "My, it is taking her awfully long to do the grocery shopping." Everyone knows that it is easy to get held up for an hour when going to Wal-Mart, but we also know how much can be accomplished in that same hour if our significant other is not being completely honest. Once doubt can find that little crack in our mind, it will continue to pick at said crack until it becomes a

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