On trust and confidence

Trust is one of the most difficult and painful things in life. We trust and we fall; getting hurt, we see true friendship in common pain. I have myself been used and taken advantage of quite a few times.

When we have given our trust and we go down, deep negative emotions take place. We do not want to forgive, we cannot forgive - and we need not forgive. When a person lets us down, they owe us something for the rest of their life. However, it is better if we don't remind them using all the means possible. A debt can be paid many ways, and it is best if we can benefit from the payment. Thus, it is best for our own good life if we can leave a person alone when they let us down - until the time is right for balancing the equation.

In our life, we should always be able to trust new people we meet. Past experiences give us wisdom to overcome naivety, enabling us trust in a balanced way, and making sure we don't give room for a new acquaintance to ask the silent question, 'why not let him/her down and do this for my own benefit?' Deception is an inevitable part of the dirt of humanity, and in order to fully enjoy our life, we should learn how to deal with it. If it's possible to let us down, some people will in some circumstances always consider it.

In order to avoid circumstances of potential deception, I myself try to maintain self-respect and trust by keeping my social relations neutral and balanced, separating miscommunication and misunderstandings - two of the most important reasons for failing relations - from regular interaction, dealing with each problem case by case, separately and in private. It is better the sooner this is done since our subconscious lets any unsettled matter alter our body language, tone of voice, chosen synonyms etc in all our communication after an incident. The reason is simply that our feelings related to the person are not at a base level and their feelings to us are probably misled as well.

This skill of trust and communication can always be perfected more and more, and we often need to fall back to the basics: who is this person to me, why do I want to stay in contact. This is perfectly acceptable as basic human behavior; people come and people go, and our limited time (as well as other resources) force us to set barriers on who we stay in contact with and who we let go forgotten, to the background - at least for some time. The good thing about this is that the human life is long and bad memories are many times forgotten when the time goes on.

Maintaining an open and welcoming attitude in life enables us to enjoy and benefit from our relations to other people. When we do not use other people, we build our own true confidence - a confidence that involves no acting; bringing knowledge on who we are in our heart, it enables us to see ourselves without roles, without weighing any relation of respect above another, giving us a heart of peace.

(2010-06-11, rewrite; 2010-08-05, edit)