Trust is not an absolute
Someone I care about said to me this week, “I just don’t know who I can trust.” I asked them, “Do you trust yourself?”
That was not meant to be facetious. Rather to make the point that trust is not an absolute thing. It is more like a spectrum, rarely completely at one extreme or the other.
You could perhaps better compare trust to the concept of ‘confidence.’ For instance, how confident are you in some data, or your ability, or a person etc. Conversely, if someone is a ‘con artist,’ they often have the ability to cheat or trick others by an ignoble confidence devoid of substance.
In Australia, we have a roadside safety campaign with signs saying, “Don’t trust your tired self.” These signs make a great deal of sense when you think of how tiredness affects your senses and concentration.
Tiredness also affects emotions, decision-making, motivation and so much more.
Ironically when you are tired, you may not have the faculty to even see the sign, let alone acknowledge that you are indeed tired. Some campaigns instead point out the warning signs, like wandering thoughts or yawning, slowing unintentionally, blinking more than usual, forgetting driving the last few kilometres and more.
I defintiely don’t trust my tired self on the road, nor do I trust it in any capacity other than tucking up in bed!
In the same way, we need to more clearly understand the other ‘selves’ that we each have, depending on all kinds of physiological and mental factors.
Learning to recognise these can help us to determine when and how to ‘trust’ ourselves and others. While most people aspire to be trustworthy and would hope that humanity itself could be trusted — it is just not reasonable to imagine a perfect Utopia where every one is like that every time.
Trust is a spectrum. It is not an absolute.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.”
― Warren Buffett
This famous and topical quote imagines trust as something like a bank account of credible actions deposited over a period of time. It reminds me of how we tend to judge others, not how we judge ourselves. It also doesn’t take into account the concept of intention i.e. accidental breaches of trust versus deliberate and flagrant misuse of trust.
So in answer to the question, “Who can I trust?” No one. Not really. All you can do is find an ‘acceptable’ level of trust on the spectrum and proceed with good intention.
Practically, like with tiredness, perhaps establish warning signs and red flags that might alert you when mutual trust is compromised or waning.
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