Years ago, while going through a transformational workshop, I had an experience that I would like to relate to you. There were a little over a hundred of us in this large meeting room at a local hotel. During one of the breaks all of the chairs were removed from the room. When we came back in, the room was completely open and spacious.
The trainer informed us that we were about to do an exercise on trust. The instructions were simple. Each of us was to go around the room and in a ten minute period of time have a single interaction with as many of the others as we could. We weren't required to talk to everyone and we could pick and choose who we did and did not interact with. But the interaction itself was very specific. We were to walk up to a person, smile, look them right in the eye and say either "Hi, I trust you" or "Hi, I don't trust you". Loud dance music was played so that even though we were all together in the same room, each conversation was a private one.
Now the thing here is, none of us knew each other. We were all different people from different walks of life who had each independently signed up for this class. So there were no no preformed relationships. The only things people could base their decisions on was what the other person looked like or sounded like when they walked up and said hello.
For many people this was a very eye opening experience. In some cultures people almost never look each other in the eyes because it is seen as a sign of aggression. They never make a direct personal connection with anyone. For some people, they found out that although they had previously thought they were very trusting of others, in reality, they didn't trust anyone. By the end of the ten minutes a whole lot of people were crying, some with happiness many more with the sadness of realizing the way they made choices just wasn't working for them. We got to see how we judged other people and how other people judged us. A great many breakthroughs were had that day.
Afterwards, there was another break and all the chairs were brought back in. Once we were all back, seated comfortably, the trainer passed a microphone around the room and asked us all to share our experiences. Most of the people said they found themselves saying more often than not that they did not trust the people they were interacting with simply because they were strangers. Many of the people that said they did trust the person they were saying hello to was because they were attracted to that person in some way.
I found my experience to be unique among all of the people that chose to share because I trusted everyone. I said hello and told every person I talked to that I trusted them. Was I just doing this to curry personal favor or to make them smile or in the hopes that they would say they trusted me back? Nope. It was the absolute truth.
See, I don't look at trust like most other people do. The commonly held belief is that if you trust a person you believe they won't do anything to hurt you. So, based on that if you believe a person won't hurt you, you say you trust them and if you believe they will, you say you don't trust them.
What I believe is a little different than that. I believe that each person is the most important person in the world to themselves. It is also my belief that people are generally good and want to do the right thing. But, when a conflict of interest occurs a person will, nearly without fail, do the thing that is good for themselves, regardless of how it affects others. I believe that it is hardly ever the intention of another person to hurt me, it is just more convenient than harming themselves.
A complete stranger, one whom I know nothing about and knows nothing about me, has nothing to gain by hurting me. There is no reason for me to believe they have any intention of hurting me. So, I trust them. Now that is not to say that my guard is completely down and inviting an attack. I am not an idiot. I take each new piece of information that comes in and modify my opinions based on circumstance. In other words, I am open and loving until shown that it is inappropriate for the circumstance.
The only way to be fair to everyone is to treat them all exactly the same way. By default, I could trust no one or I could choose to trust everyone. The first just seems like a sad sad way to live your life, don't you think?
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