Trust

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. - George MacDonald

I read this the other day and have been wondering if it is perhaps more difficult to stay ‘in trust’ with someone than ‘in love.’ I think it might be.

Maybe it’s because when people are in love they are more accessible to each other to work out differences – their relationship has a different intention.

Maybe it’s because love encompasses many feelings, emotions, actions, etc. and trust is just trust…we tend to put it in a more black and white category of understanding.

I don’t trust others easily. I have been burned by people. I have had confidences betrayed. I have been tested and used to someone else’s end and not allowed to be part of that conversation. I have been misunderstood without being allowed to give an explanation. I have been left alone by someone who promised not to do that.

And, yet, I need to be able to trust for my own well-being.

Although “betrayal” feels like the end of the world, it is not.

What I have learned is that we often trust another because we see them not as they really are, but what we want or need them to be. And we forget that their words come from their experiences, not ours…and words have different meanings behind them for each of us – including the word ‘trust’. We forget that the historical and cultural context in which we are raised gives us a different foundation and reality than the next person.

Someone else (unknown) has actually said: “The key is to get to know people and trust them to be who they are. Instead, we trust people to be who we want them to be – and when they’re not, we cry.”

So I have found that before I decide that someone else is untrustworthy, I need to examine my own participation and responsibility to the trust relationship….admitting that mine isn’t the only way to see or understand the world.

After all, isn’t that what I would hope a friend would do for me if they thought me untrustworthy?

With thanks to family members and friends who have been on the receiving end of my most intimate sharing…and have remained trustworthy.