Trust

If we now comfortably live in this modern time it is because we put so much trust, consciously or unconsciously, in people around us.

We take a jeepney or a bus or a plane to our destination without bothering to ask the state of mind of the driver or the pilot. We simply trust that he will deliver us safely to our objective.

We dine and enjoy our meals in restaurants trusting that the cook and the waiters will not do anything wicked or put anything harmful in the food we eat.

We take the elevator to the 101st floor of a skyscraper with nary a thought that the cables may snap or the tall building may collapse anytime. We trust and do not question the skills and professionalism of all those responsible for such engineering wonders.

We put our money into an ATM machine trusting that the system will record our transaction and give our money back to us when we need it.

We support a friend’s bid for a position of leadership trusting and believing that he will live up to our ideals and dreams he claims to identify with.

Society is built and grows on trust. It is to the advantage of every participant in an economic and social transaction if he offers and gives his best to a relationship. Such an effort would make every transaction mutually beneficial, lasting and sustainable. Once trust is violated the relationship established may flounder and irreversibly end. Thus, we stop returning to dine in an inefficient and unsanitary restaurant. We stop booking our flights in an airline notorious for its unreliable schedules. We stop buying our appliances from a company that negates on its warranties. And we shy away from friends who betrayed our ideals and frustrated our expectations.

There are always opportunists, scoundrels and scalawags in our midst. However cautious we may be, we at times succumb to their charm and wily schemes. But we need not sulk over our failed decisions or on the glitches of the systems around us. Life is never perfect. Yet it self-correcting. In the final equation of things, it still in our favor if we continue to trust and hope on the goodness of people around us.

To operate on trust, life is made easy, peaceful and comfortable. To do the reverse may yet turn life into a difficult, worrisome and miserable existence.

Overheard

During a break in the meeting of the MSU Board of Regents sometime in 1975, and aide pushed a heap of documents to Acting MSU President, Governor Ali Dimaporo for his signature. Without bothering to read the mountain of papers before him, the grand old patriarch of Lanao del Sur started to furiously scribble his signature on the pages where his name appeared declaring at the same time for everybody to hear:

“I trust people around me. But never ever betray me; I would become very violent.”