“Trust is a fragile thing. Once burned, it affords us tremendous freedom. But once trust is lost, it can be impossible to recover. Of course, the truth is, we never know who we can trust. Those we’re closest to can betray us, and total strangers can come to our rescue. In the end, most people decide to trust only themselves. It really is the simplest way to keep from getting burned.” - Mary Alice Young, Desperate Housewives, Season 1 Episode 10
In any kind of human relationship, whether it’s as complicated as a romantic one or as basic as friendship, trust is a valuable factor. It makes or breaks the bond between two people.
To trust a person is a risk, a very great gamble. It’s like turning off your personal computer’s anti-virus while surfing the internet. You open yourself, ushering in a wave of vulnerability to attacks from the cruel outside world.
But to trust a person has its rewards. Trusting is sharing yourself, your life with another person. In this world, we don’t have to go through everything alone. Our lives are meant to be shared with other people, especially the heavy burdens – that is, with the right people.
There are no perfect foolproof criteria to know whom to trust. Humans, even the most compassionate ones, are capable of anything, even betrayal. Only time and shared experiences between two people could tell just how much you could trust that person. This proves that trust is two-way thing, it should be mutual. You don’t normally trust a person whom you know don’t reciprocate the same secured feeling.
It’s true what they say, that it takes time to earn trust yet in just a snap of a finger, it’s easy to lose. And re-earning lost trust is even harder. Second chances are given only to those who deserve it. But then again, how do we know for sure, considering that with the tarnish of a first offense, a second offense is not impossible? Doubt clouds your judgment of whether you’d trust again or not. That sucks the most isn’t it – feeling that you’ll never be able to trust again, that it’ll never be the same. I guess that’s where the heart’s intelligence comes in. But still, even the heart makes mistakes, in fact more often than the mind, especially when it comes to decisions when objectivity is most essential. In the end, the stakes of gambling with second chances is even bigger.
Why am I saying all these? Because just recently, I was painfully reminded that not everything is what it seems to be, that there are indeed people capable of pretence and/or treachery. People whom you faithfully believed you could trust can lie with even the tiniest trivial things. As nasty as the world may seem, the truth is, there are people who are good at feigning. Worse, there are people who are bad at it, but think they are getting away with it. Dishonesty can be that outright – given a perfect chance to come clean, there are people who still choose the foolish path of denial. Despite of truthfulness and sincerity on your side, there will always be people who say or act something, yet think or feel otherwise. Even the people who call themselves your friends, lover, buddy – or even a brother.
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