THE LOST ART OF RELATIONSHIP
Trust is a must when trying to build a relationship with someone, whether it is a work relationship, friendship, romantic relationship, or a family relation- ship. But to develop trust between you and someone else, you need to prove you are trustworthy before you can be trusted. You would not expect anything less from someone else for you to trust him or her.
Perhaps trust is so difficult to give, and trustworthiness is so difficult to determine because many counterfeits are vying for our attention, money, time, and talents. To what end are the objects of our trust trying to obtain? Does the person or group we are placing our trust in have our best interests at heart? For that matter, do we have the best interests of others in mind?
There are thousands of attorneys in this country. Lawsuits are literally filling up dockets all across the nation. Why are we such a litigious society? Could it be that we have given up on proving the trustworthiness of others because it is so difficult to determine?
I used to give trust more readily than I do now. Skepticism is one of the results of broken trust throughout the years. I look more toward a person’s trustworthiness before I give trust. Unfortunately, it is possible to sway more toward the skeptical side of thinking when you get burned too many times.
When building relationships with others, I am now trying to focus more on proving my own trustworthiness before expecting others to trust me. It doesn’t mean I automatically trust others. In the process of establishing my own trustworthiness, I am surprised at how someone’s true colors become known and reveal whether they are trustworthy or not.
Every time we walk into a new situation, a new job, or a new set of relationships, we begin the process of proving trustworthiness all over again. I used to get so tweaked at one particular job because I had to prove myself all over again. People questioned me, and I had to give an answer to my decisions, thoughts, and processes. Over time, I realized this is a natural part of life and necessary for any new relationship. We cannot expect someone to immediately trust us merely because we have a history of success in a certain area. It may take less time to get to that level of trust, but every new relationship or situation we walk into requires that we prove to be trustworthy.
Trust depends on the other person giving it to us. Trustworthiness doesn’t depend on others; it depends on us. What would it look like if we lived in such a way with each other where we proved our own mettle before expecting to be given their trust? Would we even need so many levels of accountability, which are really only in place because of those who have proven to be untrustworthy?
Also, when we take the perspective that we need to prove our own trust-