On faith and trust

I understand that the content of this post may seem naive depending on your life experiences, but I truly believe in the core principles of what I'm saying.

We only really know what's going on inside our own minds (though sometimes we actually have no idea what we're thinking) and can only control our own actions. We don't necessarily know what others are thinking or what they are going to do in certain situations. Now this is a scary thought because so much of our lives is affected by those around us; we don't really have as much control as we would like. So how do we deal with this?

Trust

We need to trust those around us and have faith that strangers will be civil and respectful and our friends and family will have our backs. Please understand that I'm not saying to trust others blindly. We all learn from past experiences and I'm sure that at some point, most of us have been let down by someone we thought we could trust. They say it takes years to build trust and only seconds to destroy it. Therefore, if you know that someone trusts you, respect it and act in a way that demonstrates that you deserve it.

If someone proves to be untrustworthy, keep that in the back of your mind, but don't let that affect the way you trust others. We need to continue to trust people and have faith in the world. I know that might sound cliche, but it's true. It's crucial to be optimistic about how the future will unfold around us and cannot go about our lives expecting others to let us down- that's just unhealthy.

I think that the most important thing is to trust ourselves. We know ourselves better than anyone else and from our experiences, we need to make judgments about who to trust and who to be aware of. We have to trust our instincts above anything else regarding the people and situations surrounding us. We have to trust ourselves to make the right choices and have faith that the world will reward us for doing the best we can.

Trust me.