My Viewpoint on Trust
“On the day we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.” – L. Ron Hubbard, Writer and Philosopher
What is trust?
What is the definition for this very often sensitive, unspoken subject?
The Longman dictionary defines it the following way:
Trust Verb
- To believe that someone is honest and will not harm you, cheat you etc.
- To be sure that something is true or will happen
I would like to further define and explain this term. How and when can you believe in somebody? When can you be sure?
With these questions in mind I would like to redefine the term the following way:
Trust
- Verb: That consideration established after sufficient observation from the viewpoint on another so as to be certain on that persons actions or non-actions in the future.
- Noun: That quality built up in oneself which makes other people trust you.
I have recently realized something on the subject of trust which I find interesting. The level of trust in the society is very low, very low.
And I found a law on this:
LESS TRUST = MORE CONTROL
When we have a society as this one with police, security etc. you can easily see that the level of trust is very low.
My senior in the organization in which I work told me something interesting some weeks ago. Somebody told her that he will get something done within the next days. Then she took further actions later on to make sure it gets done and when I asked her: “Don’t you trust him?” She answered “If I would trust people I would get nothing done, you have to control” And she is the in charge of the department which handles the ethics and discipline of the personnel!
A very few people fully trust each other. It is a rare quality which takes years to build up. One error and the person has to start from the bottom again.
I am in charge of files in the organization I work. I collect these files from the same type of organizations around the world and almost every week I am sending a computer message to one of this other organizations in USA. After three years of observations I now have a very good trust with this org in USA. I know that after 1-2 weeks after my computer message I will have the file on my table – I know this.
I have an idea that the trust level is lower in cities than outside cities on the country side. My mother told me once that she had seen a place to buy fruits on the country side and there was nobody there. There was sign with prices and an open cash box to pay and change money – something you would never see in a city!
So how do you build up your trust?
I have some ideas:
- Always keep your word once given. Even if it was not important or you have to sacrifice a lot to do it. Always keep your word. This includes contracts, debts to pay back, favors, following time etc. All agreements.
- Never lie. Not even jokes, never.
- Always help a friend in need of help to your best ability.
- Never do anything harmful to somebody else.
If you follow the above points strictly with no exceptions you will see that after some years people will start to trust you and you will be benefited a lot from it. If you then also get your friends to do the same and they also follow it and they get others also to follow it you will perhaps see a change.
I have in my life since I was kid been living to the above rules. My weak point has been to follow schedules and get all done which I should get done on my job but the rest I have been good to follow. It has become natural for me to the degree that the following happened some months ago with a friend of mine. I was telling him that something had happened and he told me “No, it cannot be like that”. I took it almost as an insult and told him “If you think I am lying, then you don’t know me”.
It has even come to the point that it happened one time that somebody was calling the office I was working from another office and one staff picked up and spoke on the phone. Then he said: “Let me ask Jim, he would never lie”
Sometimes you come into situations in which you don’t want to answer a certain question as it would case harm one way or another. The way to handle is to answer in such a way that it was not really answered but it seemed to answer the question and then guide the communication to another direction, but don’t lie.
We can all improve on the level of trust. I remember a time I was trusting some other people and then I came in trouble myself because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do. I was upset and was asking the question, can I trust people?
Now I think I found the solution to this. First of all per my above 2 definitions you have to know who to trust. And then to improve others quality of trust and the whole trick is to keep following the four points of building up trust. Violations of other people does not make it right for oneself to break these four guidelines. The person who has realized this and keeps to follow the above four guidelines (not because he is forced but because he chooses to) despite any and all things done against himself has a golden heart and I believe he will have the following priveliges:
- He will have many friends.
- People will agree with him and like him.
- He will very seldom feel bad. (what would he have done to feel bad?)
I want with this essay bring some awareness to the readers of it and make them taking the share of rising the trust level of man and with that I leave with this from L. Ron Hubbard:
“On the day we can fully trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.”
Jim Westergren is a company owner from Sweden who lives together with his wife and son. Some of his interests are SEO, web development, writing and
I read your essay on trust. I totally agree with you. I am impressived by this philosophy article. I am much keen to study philosophy. Please keep on writing more. Thank you.
Thank you for your words. I want to write more articles as soon I find the time. Next will be a piece on how you can save time.
I don’t have trust of anyone other than my daughter. I have led a terrible life and not one single human being has ever given me reason to trust them, so on that note I disagree with you.
Agree, now add the viewpoint of time. Since we are human, undoubtedly we will do things that undo the level of trust we have built-up. But given the longer haul, its easier to evaluate whether another individual, or an organization, or even a country or culture, has your best interests at heart.
Too bad this subject isn’t a required one, like english & math!
“Walk to your destiny, it is yours if you want it, if you look at tomorrow it will never come and all will fade away, but later in life it will return as blanket of mud, it will hit you your face and wake you up, then you will ask yourself what if I walked a step more would that have made me happy in life, life is this way. Trust is the same thing as destiny, dont look for what the persons says, look for what he/she is looking for, this will save time and nobody will be hurt! We have to trust in God or nature as what will the world do without the sun. Lets not lie and give life for the person next to us, a few may live and it will grow on and all will not lie. The word “TRUST” will be a part of the body it will fall in like everthing else……………..
http://www.coping.org/growth/trust.htm
It is impossible to trust somebody who is lieing to you!So ,if you want people will develop trust in you-do not lie to them. If you give your word to do something -keep it! Otherwise people will not trust you! Which people do you trust? -These are people who,you know ,are trustworthy(as it relates to your survival.They will not take advantage of knowing the number of your credit card,personal ,or intimate information,that you share with them;your secrets).These are people on which you depend ,as you depend on yourself.
What Is Trust?
Trust is a firm belief in the veracity, good faith, and honesty of another party, with respect to a transaction that involves some risk. For example, when you give your credit card to the waiter at a restaurant, you are expressing trust that the waiter will use the credit card to process a transaction that will pay for your meal. You expect that that transaction will be the only one processed and that the waiter won’t steal the credit card number for some other purpose. The only time I’ve ever had my credit card number stolen was in a restaurant, and yet I still blithely hand my credit card over to any waiter who comes along. There is clearly risk, but I take it because I’m convinced that the risk is small. Most of us don’t consciously think about the risk of using a credit card to pay for a meal; we evaluate the risk intuitively based on a variety of factors including our previous experience, the way the restaurant looks, and, perhaps most importantly, beliefs about the credit card company indemnifying us beyond a certain point.
There’s no doubt that trust is linked to risk when we consider who we’re willing to trust with what. I may trust a particular person to fix my car, but not to baby-sit my children. Trust is based not just on the entities involved in the transaction, but also on their roles and the particulars of the transaction.
Trust is knowing that someone you care about isn’t going to lie to you or use you or cheat on you behind your back. When you were a baby you trusted your parents to take care of you. And as an adult if you don’t trust people it’s hard to have any faith in them. Trust is
reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person with confidence. The power to know who you can relie on and expect to have a true team capable to keep things within the circle… Trust is never doubting another person for a second…. Trust is knowing that person is not going to betray you. you go on and don’t worry about that what person is doing, for you have trust in them…
Trustworthiness
· Be Honest
· Don’t deceive, cheat, or steal
· Be reliable- do what you say you’ll do
· Have the courage to do the right thing
· Build a good reputation
· Be loyal- stand by your family, friends, and country
Trust is not automatic. Earning trust takes time, losing trust can happen quickly. Honesty, promise keeping, loyalty and integrity are four elements that are key to building trustworthiness. Use these guidelines for earning and maintaining trust.
· Tell the truth.
· Be sincere. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you find something that doesn’t belong to you, return it.
· Keep your word.
· Be reliable.
· Return things you borrow.
· Keep private information private.
· Don’t gossip.
· Don’t ask a friend to do something wrong to keep your friendship.
· Stand up for and act on what you believe.
· Do the right thing no matter what you lose in the process.
Are you worthy of trust?
Our minds awake as the alarm sounds it rings a door bell inside! Awake! Awake a sound echoes, awaking the person inside. We answer the echo with a deep sigh & think it’s another day! We look ourselves in the mirror, only we notice our eyes pushed deep down inside. We wash our faces to freshen up, yet we wash away thoes young days! We do everything the same as any other day! There is no different in the first & last! We ponder when will our days change when we can call to some & be heard, we only call these days to the person inside. The seasons of the world change without notice, yet we see changes in the mind of the changing man! Want to break free? Listen to your heart, the deep echoes, which bounce of the walls of it. Listen with care, imagine, feel, smell the fragrance, extend ur open hands, hold the echo as a priceless gift. & walk to ur destiny, this time will never come back. History is written..
thanks for the tip…it was my report though…
i totally agree with this philosophy of trust. i myself have been practicing trust and experienced that ‘anything’ that remains vulnerable from ‘attacks’ even after the most stringent of ’security measure’ can be ’secured’ with ‘trust’. To add, ‘trust’ by nature needs to be build and hence temporal in nature. Lets define trust by:
“The chain is as strong as the strongest link”
You say that
So it takes years for some people to trust you? How badly have you screwed them over? If it takes you several years to build trust you seriously need to review your own rules. And secondly you say that “you have to know who to trust” WOW can you give me that magic ball that tells me who to trust? How can you know whom to trust? there is no magical formula to figure this out. Unless you are referring to a drug addict or something but then that’s just stereotyping. I appreciate what your doing here but next time make a sound argument when your trying to persuade people.
I agee with Johnny, when youve been screwed over so to speak more than once, trust does not happen overnight. I have been emotionally abused, physically abused most of my life, i do blame my self because i allowed people to abuse it, i have been vulnerable all my life, showing kindness, forgiveness am a christian, am trying very hard to heal my wounds. somedays i feel very cold hearted but its the only way to protect your heart. I am trying to balance keeping my heart soft but remain protected because when your guard is down thats when you get caught up in a world of emotional turmoil. Am now 46 i dont want to be alone for ever, have been married, divorced and involved in a few relationships and now then & when someone gets too close i feel smothered and need to breathe, so i push them away. Do you have any answers, the relationship im in is very strained at times, I wont allow my feelings to show much anymore.Thanks
There is some good advice here, but I feel it is incomplete. You mentioned that one must “know who to trust”, but that topic needs to be addressed more completely. Firstly, I don’t think that trusting others is the most important, because it is very difficult to determine who to trust for most people. It is more important to BE trustworthy, because that is where respect will be gained. Someone who is honest and fair is respected by others.
Discernment is the other part, and possibly much more difficult. Blind trust is the same as blind faith – it allows a person to be manipulated and cheated. So we must become very skilled at discerning, so that we can spot the signs of dishonesty and manipulation quickly, protect ourselves, and warn others. When we meet a new person, we should neither trust nor distrust them – if we trust them blindly, they can manipulate us, but if we distrust them, we might treat them unfairly. It is important that we are objective in our decision to trust or not trust someone. We must of course be cautious, and not trust someone with important tasks until we are sure they are trustworthy, but being cautious should not cause us to be unfair.
Personally, I think that trust is largely misunderstood. Many people see trust as a weakness, and indeed, many believe that they MUST manipulate others to be safe from manipulation themselves, but this simply creates a never ending cycle. One trustworthy person can be a positive influence and show people that this cycle of “abuse and be abused” is not the only way.
I’m not promoting Christianity, but the Bible contains a very relevant saying; we must become “as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves”. Wise so that we aren’t manipulated, gentle so we don’t manipulate others. A trustworthy person can have a healing influence on those around them.
A final note; we must be honest to ourselves if we wish to be honest to others. Not lying in thought is harder than being honest in word.
I also question the definition of trust.
Instead of putting our trust, which in many ways is putting our own happiness and peace of mind in the hands of others, why do we not become responsible for our own happiness and peace of mind by trusting ourselves?
If we trust in ourselves to create happiness and peace within, then we will interact with our outer world with no fear. Putting trust in another is just a way in which we are trying to control another’s actions. If we let them know we “trust” them, we are holding them accountable to their actions and hope that this will affect how they in turn interact with us.
If we are walking through this world trusting ourselves, then other’s actions have less control over us. We do not walk in fear of others. We have a chance to be more true to ourselves and affect others from a more meaningful place within.
My thoughts for the day