Trust...Betraying, Earning, Keeping

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When you place your trust in someone or something, you are putting your faith, assurance, & belief out there, that what you expect or believe in, will happen. When you step on a plane for example, you trust that the pilot will fly you to your destination safely. When you send your child to school, you trust that your child will learn in a safe environment. When someone says that they love you, you trust that they're telling you the truth.

Far too often, people betray the trust that others have in them. A husband may look at pornography while his wife is not looking. A wife may have an affair with another man while her husband is serving in the military in a far off land. A teenager may lie to his parents about where he's been. Store employees might steal from the store, thinking they're not taking enough for anyone to notice.

Are you that shopper who purchases an item for a holiday or special event, uses it, then returns it later for a full refund because you "just didn't need it after all"? Customers trust that the store is not selling used merchandise, & the stores trust that they will not be taken advantage of by dishonest customers.

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What about the person who talks their way out of a speeding ticket by giving a sob story based on a lie? Or how about the pet who trusts its owner not to mistreat it, & that trust has been broken? 

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Is it right for a man who did nothing to hurt his children, to lose his relationship with them because he & his ex-wife could not make their marriage work, & she maliciously turned their children against him?

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How about the man who tells a woman she is special so that she'll give him what he wants, & then he never calls her again? Or the woman who uses a man to spoil & pamper her, & then dumps him for  the next guy with money to come along? 

Then there's the dinner companion who seems to have "forgotten" his wallet when the restaurant bill comes, & his companion is forced to pay the entire bill.

Now for one of my personal favorites:

What about the elected official whose job it is to keep the trust of his/her constituents according to established policies, but instead betrays that trust? 

Surely we can all think of scenarios where trust has been broken. Once someone's trust is betrayed, it has to be earned again, in order for the one doing the trusting to be able to keep on doing so.

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Broken trust can be a simple life lesson that one can learn to get over, or it can really hurt & devastate someone for an indefinite period of time. But the solution to earning back one's trust is simple, although the time it takes to do so, varies with each person, according to the nature of the betrayal: 

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1. Imagine how you would feel if someone did to you what you did to them. If you feel it wouldn't bother you, then consider how you would feel if something DID bother you, yet someone did it to you anyway. Actually putting yourself in the other person's shoes helps you to think twice before breaking that trust with them again.

2. Integrity - Practice it. It's called, knowing right from wrong, & making the correct choice.

3. Ask yourself if the consequences of broken trust are worth it. If you decide that they are, then refer to Step 2.

4. Finally, if you want to be able to trust others, then be trustworthy yourself. Otherwise, you are just being a hypocrite who lives by a double standard. 

Trust is a big part of the foundation of all relationships, whether they are business or personal ones. If that foundation is cracked, it's going to take some time to repair the damage.

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So the trick is to make it stronger than it was before. That comes from being the trustworthy person to others that you want others to be to you. If you can do that, then whatever trust you have earned, you will keep, even if it takes a long time before you have earned that trust back again. 

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