Trust

Is the average human programmed to trust as a default or to mistrust? I thought it was the latter until I realized that we would be spending a majority of our days locked up in our rooms if we didn't have at least an ounce of trust.

When you leave your house and ride a train to work, you trust that none of the people that are sitting beside you would stick a knife into your stomach. When you walk the hallways of your place of employment, you trust that none of the people you encounter would deliberately spit at you or openly laugh at what you're wearing.

Of course, you don't consciously think about these things but the fact that you leave your house everyday to rejoin humanity is a testament to the amount of trust that you place on people. You won't necessarily reveal your deepest, darkest secrets but in some shape or form you trust them.

We were made to be social beings. We were not meant to live out our days on an island by our lonesome. As social beings we entrust a part of ourselves to the people around us whether we do so intentionally or otherwise. A friend once asked me why it hurts when people let us down. It doesn't matter whether those people are important to us, when they disappoint us our hearts break because of the trust we unwittingly placed on them.

Personally, I think that although being too trusting puts a person at an extremely vulnerable position, it's the one thing that connects you to another human being. Betrayal is the most painful thing in the world, in my opinion, because it crushes the heart. But can it crush your spirit?