Trust is rare today. Building trust is even harder because of the nature of the world as we experience it. The changes that characterise relationships, can soon wear down our normal instincts. Often, we have to depend on inner intuition to guide us through this maze.
Trust has nothing in common with naivety. Unless we allow doubt to play a role in our lives, we cannot hope to build lasting trust. In this respect, we are weak and vulnerable. We become strong slowly. God removes the props we have lived with, over the years. We cannot stand all alone. We must work towards building a community of trust.
Perforce, today space between us has shrunk due to quick movement -- we travel vast distances and time zones in just a day or two. There is no time to absorb the lessons we learn from culture shocks, and adapt to the differences that bring variety to the world.
Earlier, families acted as natural environments for building trust. With people walking in and out of relationships, the whole edifice of families and society has undergone transformation. Families, with their give and take were able to provide stability to young and growing children. Now, torn between parents and custody battles, the young often are victims of such conflict.
The young as well as adults are exposed to all kinds of people, many of whom cannot be taken at their word. Inquisitiveness and an unwelcome preoccupation with what others are doing are some of the social side effects. Doubts help us to navigate through these environments before we arrive at some kind of permanence in our relationships with others.
We cannot be intimate with all; we can be so only to a limited few. That is why lasting friendships have become a casualty. When we build trust, it is after we have allowed the initial doubts to settle down. We could continue to doubt unsavoury people, but side-by-side, need to start building communities of trust.
Here, we have to factor out those whose motivations and behaviour is suspect. The world we confront every day is no longer simple. It is a world whose very existence is threatened by violence, mayhem, cruelty and distrust. If we take things at their face value we will end up impoverished.
Often it seems that the battle is an unequal one. When some people are harmed, everyone suffers. That is why conflicts confuse issues. How do we, those who have already lived long lives and others who are still on the threshold of a new world, clarify our minds and emotions?
There are no readymade answers. In the end, have to find our own balance. Get linked to a web of goodness and kindness instead of constantly getting pulled into negative webs. Every system has thrown up new challenges.
We can always beg to differ when we are compelled into interacting with those who want to destroy. God is our hidden partner in all our daily transactions. If we listen to His voice, of conscience and positivity, we will be able to overcome. We have jettisoned many values without replacing them with something better.
The human spirit remains indomitable and no one can crush it. That is why, though we fall, we rise up again and again. No one knows the future but we can continue to build. Some structures will come down. What is permanent will remain. Above all, the need to build a community of trust based on positive values ought to be of paramount importance.