To Trust or Not To Trust...

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Can we trust others? Can we trust everyone we meet? Can we trust our friends, colleagues, family members? These questions come to everyone’s mind during life. If we made a street survey, most probably we would get a lot of different answers depending on different experience of each person. So, as a rule should we trust other people or not?

St. Thomas Aquinas says that a society cannot function based on lies, because at some point it will simply fall apart. When I observe our modern society, I would rather say that it cannot function based on the truth. Companies, markets, governments, institutions, media networks, commercials often are based on lies, or at least at some point, they use lies for their own benefit.

One day I made an experiment. During my daily routine I was trying to observe how often I lie or lying comes to my mind. Well, I was surprised how easily, so called “escape lies” were coming to my mind in different circumstances. And I usually try not to lie at all.

OK, so it is a fact that people more or less often lie. So, can we trust anyone at all? Can there be a general rule applied?

At some point in our lives we all experience a betrayal. For some people it was such a big deal that they would really never trust anyone anymore. Others, let’s call them naive, they trust blindly everyone they meet and as a rule they will be betrayed more often. Although, I would like to speak about “normal” people who are neither extremely naive, nor excessively cautious.

There is a famous Polish philosopher Prof. Leszek Kolakowski who says that as a rule we should trust people. How can one understand it, especially after many betrayals and bearing in mind, as Dr. House says, “everybody lies”? I think that it simply means that we should give everyone a chance. Well, it is possible that we will be betrayed, but on the other hand, there is also a chance that we will meet actually someone trustworthy. If as a rule we decide to distrust others, very soon we will find ourselves quite isolated in our own life’s bubble.

So, the first step is to give a chance to others. Then, we simply see how it goes. What’s the next step? It is pretty simple. I apply here a golden rule taken from the Bible – if you can trust someone with a small thing, you would be able to trust with big things. If though, at the beginning, you cannot trust with small things, just forget about this person, because sooner or later he/she will betray you and simply you will be disappointed. It is a sort of 0-1 system. If this someone scores 1 (you can trust him/her with small things), generally it is a good sign and with time you can trust him/her with bigger things. If though, someone fails this trust issue with smaller things, I believe, there is no point in continuing any kind of relationship hoping that this or that person will change. Of course, exceptions are possible, but “once a lier, always a lier” as a rule applies.

The other thing worth mentioning is that generally we cannot change others. Let me give you an example. A drinking alcoholic who will not accept and admit his illness, will never change because of others. He can have all pressure coming from family, friends, etc., but until he, inside himself, will not admit that he has a problem, pressure or influence even of his closest will mean little to him. He must simply desire from whole his heart to change himself. Then this desire should not remain only a desire, but be transformed into real action. There is an old saying attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola: “pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you”. If a liar does not want to change himself, there is no one who can change him.

Some final thought on trust. I am someone who has been many times betrayed by people whom I helped a lot. A lot of people being in my shoes would never trust anyone anymore. I believe though in giving everyone a chance at the beginning. This kind of attitude has allowed me to meet some extraordinary people or make some truly good friends. Most probably I will be betrayed still many times in my life, but on the other hand, I may meet some new great people. Though, it may not look like it nowadays, but I believe that the truth is still stronger or bigger than lies. If we say that the truth is a sort of entity, a lie is a privation, or a sort of corrupted entity of the truth. We should also remember that trust once broken can never be fully rebuilt. A betrayal can be forgiven, but it is almost impossible to re-establish the trust.
My advice: avoid lying – you will feel better, have a chance to actually meet other trustworthy people and simply life actually will become easier. One lie usually begins a series of other lies to protect the first lie. A liar externally soon becomes a liar internally – so he lies to himself about himself. Then, his life becomes an illusion and has nothing to do with reality.