by Jeffrey Wright

Created on: October 11, 2009   Last Updated: October 12, 2009

Trust is a fickle thing, especially in a world where many people give very little reason to be trusted. With rampant dishonesty, theft and other such things many still feel that trust should be given blindly and not earned. But is this wise?

Looking at the news every day the answer is a resounding no! Watch any news cast and you can hear at least one or two reports of something dishonest having either happened in the course of the day or something thats happened over the course of a longer period of time, but is just coming to light. People that blindly give trust are generally the ones that are affected most by these things.

Not to mention the money making scams that proliferate the internet. They ask for your trust. Should you give it to them so readily? Obviously not, they are scams and should not be trusted. Time and time again you hear about people giving their hard earned money to buy whatever it is that they need to make money and nothing ever happensexcept they lose their money. But that wouldn't have happened if they had made the company earn their trust rather than simply give it to them for whatever reason.

Then there is personal trust: you meet someone new and what do you do? Trust them immediately? Not a good idea. Are you a mind reader? If you are anything like everybody else then you have no idea what this person is like and what they intend to do. Give them the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise but to give them trust so quickly could prove fatal as some instances around the world have shown.

In an existing relationship it's important to constantly earn a partner's trust. Not only earn it, but keep it as well. Even then, trust can be undermined by an action or a series of actions that the offending partner commits. Things like affairs and partners cheating on each other can undermine trust faster than it can be earned. Once that happens, trust can be very hard to earn, and take an even longer time than it did in the first place.

However, there is trust you can tentatively give to a person. In this case this trust would be given to someone you just met through a friend. Since your friend already trusts him, and your friend has earned your trust, you can give a little more leeway in such a situation. But remember that you still don't know this person and so you should still show care.

In this world, trust is not something that one should give freely or blindly; too many bad things can happen if you do. Trust is good if it's not misguided.

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