Trust: what value does it have?

“Trust is important, but it is also dangerous. It is important because it allows us to form relationships with others and to depend on others—for love, for advice, for help with our plumbing, or what have you—especially when we know that no outside force compels them to give us such things. But trust also involves the risk that people we trust will not pull through for us; for, if there were some guarantee that they would pull through, then we would have no need to trust them. Thus, trust is also dangerous. What we risk while trusting is the loss of the things that we entrust to others, including our self-respect, perhaps, which can be shattered by the betrayal of our trust.” (Philip Pettit)

Trust is a central focus in any type of relationship, from trust in institutions and friendship to trust in the self.  And no wonder, trust is a virtue that contributes to the foundation of our identities in connection with our social interactions that puts our vulnerability at play.  The feeling of trust  will be the stepping stone in making decisions that will determine our stand for  openness vs. privacy,  proximity vs. closeness,  control vs. respect,  friendliness vs. affinity, bonding vs. circumscribing, integrating vs. terminating.

In short,  trust will help advance or back away from relationships, to connect deeper or keep it on the surface. Could it be rational to trust other people? How much attention do we put on the trust we convey?

It will probably take years to experience the security that trust brings, and the search is usually through the small details to evidence the virtue. Through that trip, many times we feel disappointed with betrayal; though, it is often our expectations and interests that betray us, not the other. The real cause is the tendency to idealize the other in response to our interests, which manipulate our intuition and rationality and dazzle our capacity of differentiating trust as a real virtue of the other from the hope we put in trust.

In other words, we can easily feel we can trust when we have certain interest, such as romantic, cultural, financial, social; but in reality, the virtue may be non-existent. We can easily show the coherence that displays trust, but in reality, it may be not truly genuine (bias attitudes are usually out of our concern when involve people whom we are not really attracted by). So, in becoming a trustworthy person, do we warrant certain behaviors based on our interests so as to assure the attention or affection of the other, or are our attitudes generated from the mere value we find in trust?

Trust is the security that the other won’t let us down because genuinely cares.

Trust brings quality and growth in human interactions as it is a pillar ingredient in revealing our emotions that will build the bond with the other through affinity. It also healthily solidifies our emotional stability that feeds our maturity in interactions.  Is it an inherited human condition or is it a virtue that we can build?

Like other virtues, trust can be built. It is necessary to commit to being honest with ourselves in regards to the reasons that are leading us to trust or not, and  in regards to the reasons for the quality of trust we provide. Trust also calls for commitment to genuinely care to construct coherence between what we expect and what we do, and to honestly look for coherence between what reality can do for us and what we wish for. These reasons will help us distinguish trust from reliance, interest from care.

Trust is not merely found in heroism; it is mainly revealed through the clarity and honesty of the small every-day attitudes. What things do we do that diminishes the trust that others perceive in us? What value does trust have in our lives?

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”  (Sigmund Freud)

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (Maya Angelou)

Inés