Trust (Archived Blog Moved Over from Another Blog)

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Trust

It's only a small word, five letters, one syllable.

How can this little word mean more than any other word you or I know. Our whole lives revolve around this word. This word makes us who we are.From the moment we are born, trust is something we crave, need and live for. We look into our mother's eyes and trust her wholeheartedly, no conditions, no exceptions and then the foundation is set…..

Does she keep that trust?

Does she put conditions on that trust?

Does she betray your trust?

Does she lose your trust?

Does she honour your trust?

As a baby we give our whole selves over to this trust, firstly to our mothers and then to others around us, but as we grow that unconditional trust starts to get broken down. Perhaps it was the day your dad said he would pick you up from school and forgot so you walked home…again still too young to realise that every time something small like this happened you lost a small amount of trust. Perhaps it is something far worse...

As teenagers we give our trust to our best friends and tell them our most intimate secrets only to have that trust taken when they tell someone else.Then there is the opposite sex. Our hormones arrive and thus we set ourselves up for years of our trust being broken… and us breaking someone else's trust. I am guilty of this…. Alex Dean, my first true love – in Year 8. I chased him, then let him chase me. Then when I had him, I dumped him… I left a note with my sister so when he came around to my house he got the note, while I was on my way to see another boy. He was on his bike so he chased me down the street and threw his bike on the ground crying. I was mean... Than a year later older and wiser I wanted him back, so I chased him again and he said he would only be my boyfriend if I didn't do what I did to him the last time. So he gave over his trust to me…again……. three months later I did exactly the same thing to him..again.

Did I have an impact on his life? Probably… he lost a little bit of trust….

There were many more boys that I chased and then dumped….thats what teenage girls do. Do we realise the impact we have on these adolescent boys? No. Now I have a son, how will I protect him from girls like me?? When I was 16 I met Steve. He was older than I was – 19 I think and not from my area. He was exciting…rode a motorbike. He was a body builder…. I thought I was so lucky to have such a perfect boyfriend. He would pick me up from school on the back of the bike and take me to clubs. I looked up to him in a naïve teenage way and gave him my full trust. There is nothing I wouldn't do for him. My family hated him, so I stopped speaking to them. We moved into our own little flat and I thought life was perfect. Until he started asking why dinner wasn't ready, or why I was wearing a skirt so short… I started hating going to night clubs with him because if a guy came up to dance with me..I'd know about it later.
This went on for a year. The more I tried to please him, the more I ended up making him angry. When he wasn't angry he was awesome. Then I was 19, I left him. I just moved back home and told him it was over. He called me daily. Sent me long stem roses every single day for a month. He would come into my work and leave me presents before I got there in the morning.

Did he have an impact on my life? Yes Did I lose my trust for people…..no.

I am still naïve and think everyone is worth trusting….. I let my heart rule who I am and how I think. I still believe everyone is good until they prove to me that they aren't. In business I am ruthless. I am cynical and read people like a book. In my private life, I jump in the deep end. I like passion and I like to trust. There is a nagging thought at the back of my head these days though..it keeps begging me not to trust, but my heart won't let that rule me.

When we trust someone, we are handing them a part of ourselves and when someone trusts us they are giving them a part of themselves….what could be a better gift and who would ever want to miss out on that?

TRUST…. A small word with such huge implications… think about it next time you use it.