What happens when we don’t trust someone?
Do we hand them the keys and our first born?
Or do we look at them funny, maybe with some quality RBF so they end up leaving us alone because they think “ugh, why would I want to hang out with that bitch? If they can’t be trusted to not make unpleasant faces just standing there, how I could they be trusted to not say despicable stuff to our shared close friends some day in the future if I choose to overlook their epic RBF…” Or something like that. Kind of ironic, huh?
For those not down with the kids, RBF means Resting Bitch Face. Or Resting Dick Face, for the more masculine sneer.
Do we hold them at arms-length and scrutinise everything they do forever and a day until they become so reprehensible in our mind that the perceived toxicness of the untrustability leaves us being less than we could be because our behaviours and thoughts revolve around someone else and their perceived negative traits rather than something of value in your own life and belief system?
Which begs the question: How do you gain or lose trust?
Well, sometimes it’s a learned thing. There’s only so many chances you can give someone or something before you can’t help but get the feeling that maybe, possibly, potentially, occasionally, every now and then, said someone or something can’t backup what they’re selling.
Sometimes it’s a gut thing. A feeling, an intuition, a vibe. But potentially also literally a gut microbiome thing. Which I can explain, but later…
It could be argued that the reason we keep handing out those chances to someone who keeps messing things up is because we believe they are worthy of trust, even if its maybe not in that specific way like we wish. Maybe they don’t trust themselves to handle the trust they’ve been given (which is a massive thing, but more on that in a bit). Or maybe it’s us, in that we WANT to trust them more than their previous history suggests they are necessarily deserving of.
When we do trust someone, is it because they have an impeccable track record? Not always, but usually. I mean, we don’t have any real reason to not trust them, so it’s a given that they can actually do the thing. So we trust their capability in that aspect, but does that necessarily mean we trust them as a person? Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes its hard to tell. Sometimes it doesn’t matter.
Maybe there’s a difference between professional trust and personal trust. A huge difference even. Professional trust is about using your cognitive awareness to do the pros and cons of what’s going on, needs to be going on, and assigning the appropriate amount of company allocated Trust™ accordingly. Makes sense. I mean, Marni IS the best woman for the project, despite having crippling gambling debts and missing a pinky finger due to said debts. But that’s at home stuff, not in the office stuff.
Maybe its ironic that we then use that at home stuff to make sure we never ask Marni for a tip on a horse, let alone literally any other financial decision that could come up in conversation. Would we ask Marni to take our kids home after you were asked to work late and the creche was closing? Nah, buying them back from “Green Fingers” Tony at a 80% mark up from what Marni “traded” them in for is a bit steep and not quite the kind of fun that you like to be having on a Wednesday after work. But I’m assuming there. I’m sure there’s action adventure movies made about that very thing that you’ve always felt weren’t done right, and HERE is your chance to prove it!!!
There is some evidence to suggest that trust and attraction and chemistry is associated with compatible microbiomes. Your biome is everywhere. Gut, skin, mouth, unmentionables, even in a small cloud about a meter outside of your meat popsicle. So that gut feeling can literally be the gut and its bits “feeling” out this other persons gut and making a judgement call on them and their life. Kind of rude, but sometimes it’s nice to know you have some trillions of teammates who have got your back and making sure those scummy, non-biome compatible people are kept away with a biome endorsed RBF sent their way.
Anyway…
The point that I am really, but slowly, getting around to is this: what happens if you don’t trust yourself?...
Because that’s a thing. And potentially a thing you don’t even know is a thing until it starts to become a thing that results in self sabotage of current and future things because deep down you don’t trust that you can do the thing because of other things back before this thing was a thing.
Catch all those things there, Vern? Good. You’re now our resident thing catcher. There’s no pay, it’s all prestige. And a hat. But a nice hat.
If you don’t trust yourself… Well, Vern, that’s a slippery slope of thing right there.
What if the evidence has piled up so high on your lifes record of fuckups that you simply cannot trust that the decision you make about you in the future is going to have any value beyond more character building and learning experiences (like we need more of that… Well, I mean, we do. But surely not THAT much…).
What if your Word™ means nothing, because you’ve abandoned it so many times it’s now just noise your face makes that kind of upsets you because you KNOW it’s a lie, given your track record.
What if you don’t even know you do that much? What if you think you mean it, but your subconscious is sitting there, hearing words come out of your mouth and saying to itself, out loud, “but we’ve been running this other program where we make sure everything goes to hell in a hand basket because that’s the program we’ve always run… I mean, they say they don’t like it, but don’t do any new coding on the program. Huh… I’ll just assume the words are a mistake and run the hand-basket program anyway”
Yep. We ALL do that shit.
Unless, we start paying attention to how we talk to ourselves, how we think of what we say to ourselves and if that is genuinely true in that moment, or if we have to MAKE it more true by fucking up some more.
Sorry guys, cliché time.
Pay attention!
What are you telling yourself with your words and actions every day? Because the hand-basket program will run based on that.
If you wake up making a liar out of yourself, maybe that’s worth thinking about. Because if you don’t trust yourself, how on earth will you get anything you genuinely want to achieve started, let alone done with value to yourself.
Baby steps guys. Possibly literally.
“Today, I shall take the stairs to get to the office” Better do it, because YOU are always watching. Judging, assessing, analysing, measuring, looking for reasons to got back to old ways because it’s easier… You know, the thing we do when we don't trust someone else. But more, because we already have LOTS of dirt on ourselves.
Your trust is based on the story told by yourself to yourself about yourself.
If you want to tell a different story…. PAY ATTENTION!!! Be aware of the old story, that has led you to think you can’t change how things are, and start to find small ways to mess with that old news.
Start small. Seemingly unimportant decisions. Work you way up. Rebuild that trust, personally and professionally, and you will be better for it. Maybe even believe you can trust your opinion on that new girlfriend you want to bring home to meet your mother.
Or something.
Whatever…
Trust in your truth because there is truth in your trust.
Tell the truth to yourself, you will trust yourself again.
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Ernest Hemingway
Comentarios