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| Author: Posted: Sep. 8, 2002 | This Page Viewed: 7,004,385 |
Question of the Week: 45 - 6/11/2001 Who Do You Trust? 'Perfect Love and Perfect Trust' is an instruction that Wiccans find in the words of the Goddess. Even if you are not Wiccan, trust is an element that can have a profound effect in any relationship. Who do YOU trust? How did this person, group, organization or cause win your trust? Has your trust ever been betrayed? How did this make you feel and what did you learn from the experience? Are YOU trustworthy? What is YOUR definition of 'trust'? |
| Reponses: There are 22 responses posted to this question. | Reverse Sort |
| I Trust Very Few People. Trust, I Believe, Is Something That's Earned... | Jun 12th. at 12:40:59 am EDT |
| Angie McMullen (Montoursville, Pennsylvania US) | Age: 22 - Email |
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I trust very few people. Trust, i believe, is something that's earned not given away. People in the past have hurt me dearly when I just gave them my trust. I learned from these experiences that it's something a person works toward and that it takes time. In order for me to trust a person I look for respect, honesty and the ability not to gossip behind my back. That is how I treat other people and I expect the same back. Blessed be Angie:) |
| Get Ready For A Book Type Opinion) Trust, Five Little Letters, Seems... | Jun 12th. at 12:21:33 pm EDT |
| Lore (Caledonia, Missouri US) | Age: 22 - Email |
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(Get ready for a book type opinion) Trust, five little letters, seems like it should be easy to do doesn't it? Like you should look at a person and say right away "I trust that person" or "There's no way I'll ever trust them" but as with all things in life, nothing's ever that simple. Trust is something that must be earned from me through months and years, it's something that comes in varying degrees. I trust my family more than friends, my friends more than aquaintances, and my girlfriend most of all. I have a wide range of trust in myself, when it comes to casting or practicing the craft I have large trust, when it comes to some other things, sometimes as simple as writing a letter, I can lose trust casue I have a selective memory. To win my trust you must work at it. Often after a month or two I will trust a person a little, perhaps with widely known parts of myself or perhaps to get a glimpse at the real me... after a year I will share secrets with that person, and sometimes, only sometimes after a longer period I will share deeper secrets. My family I trust with my life and wellbeing of body, I know that they will not leave me in the elements to perish but perhaps will let me feel a little hardship if I bring it upon myself before offering aid. My girlfriend I trust with everything, my heart, my soul. She is the one and only person who gets to see the one true me in all my flaws and good. My deepest secrets which I will tell no other living being are hers and when a problem, big or small, comes to me I will seek my sanctuary in her. She is perhaps the one who I feel will never betray my trust, I have had many 'friends' through my life who have betrayed me and that experience taught me above all else, be careful who you trust and how much you trust them. I pride myself on how trustworthy I am, I have taken the confidences of most of my friends and will carry those to my grave with me, never to pass through my lips nor my hands. And as for the definition of trust.. it would take a novel to write that, it is so many different things to so many different people.. to me, trust is having a time around certain people, when I'm not paranoid of what they could do.. and if I trust a person outright which is rare, I will not be paranoid at all.. |
| To Begin, I Apologize That This Will Probably Seem Like More Of... | Jun 12th. at 3:35:46 pm EDT |
| Shandeigh Fay (San Bernardino, California US) | Age: 19 - Email |
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To begin, I apologize that this will probably seem like more of a rant than an opinion. I've been wishing lately that I could trust certain people in my life more. There are three people in this world that I trust completely: my mother, my best friend (who is more like my sister) and my fiance. I can tell them anything, no matter how personal or embarrassing. They are the first people I run to with good news. They have never let me down and are always there for me when I need them. There are two people who I trust as much as I can. I'll call them R and V. I trust R almost like my mom, best friend and fiance, but because of reasons that I understand and accept, she can't be there for me. We live in different states (although I'm in a different state from my best friend, so that doesn't always matter) and she is going through some very hard times. So it isn't that I don't trust R, but we've grown apart quite a bit over the last few years. V is an important friend to me, but she has flaked out on me twice when I really needed her help. I've forgiven her, because I know she has problems with relationships of all kinds (family, lovers, friends), but I can't help being a little distant from her. Someone I really want to trust is my fiance's mother. We'll call her W. I like her most of the time, but she tends to get preachy about any and everything. W is the classic know-it-all person. She claims to be Christian and often talks about this big earthquake that's going to hit when Jesus comes back. But when I'm sitting around the house reading one of my Pagan oriented books, she starts bragging about her supposed psychic abilities and speaks to me as if I'm just a young person who doesn't know the first thing about anything occult. "Your tarot cards must be given to you" is something she once told me when I tried to start a conversation about my interest in reading the tarot. Some believe this, some do not. I do not. W is not the only person I know like that. My fiance's friend (I'll call him L) constantly tries to challenge me on my knowledge of Paganism. At first I just thought it was friendly conversation when he would ask me did you know blah blah whatever type questions. Turns out, L thinks I'm ditzy. He assumes I saw the movie 'The Craft' and decided Paganism was cool. This is why I shy away from group things, because I'm afraid that people with more experience won't take me seriously, because I'm young and new to Paganism. I guess this is the end of my rant... That felt good! BB everyone. :) |
| You Trust Yourself Is Who. Or You Learn That People Are All... | Jun 12th. at 4:36:06 pm EDT |
| Tara (Pasadena, California US) | Age: 29 - Email |
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You trust yourself is who. Or you learn that people are all on their own paths, and make different choices in life than you do. Acceptance in either instant is the correct answer. If you trust someone and they for some reason betray your trust wouldnt that then be a lesson to you and perhaps a lesson to them? My opinion is that no lesson is worthless. On the flip side of that perspective is based on experience. If you have been taken advantage of in the past all you can do is learn from that experience and not allow it to happen again. Use your experience, and your lessons (blessings) and go forth to learn. Blessed be, intense-female |
| Trust Is Not Something One Can "place' In Someone Else. Trust Has... | Jun 13th. at 11:56:09 am EDT |
| Dyan (Potter Valley, California US) | Age: 41 - Email |
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Trust is not something one can "place' in someone else. Trust has to come from within. The only one who's trustworthyness I can control is myself. Therefore I trust a great deal; I trust others will be sometimes be jerks, make mistakes, love me, hate me, have good or bad intentions. I trust that humans will behave like humans, horses like horses, cats like cats, dogs like dogs. I try not to impose the standards of horse or dog trust on humans (That would be unfair and doom the humans to failure). I trust in Nature and the circle of life, that it will change and grow whether I "trust" it or not. For these reasons, I don't feel I have been betrayed, unless I have betrayed myself. This trust allows me to feel centered and at peace most of the time; a skill that took some years and process to achieve. |
| Imho Trust Is Earned, Not Something To Give Without Due Consideration. Now... | Jun 13th. at 12:44:46 pm EDT |
| Trish Telesco (western, New York US) | Age: 41 - Email |
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IMHO Trust is EARNED, not something to give without due consideration. Now, having said that I'll admit more than my fair share of naieve trust. I have this innate belief that people are *good*, and as a very social creature I tend to see the best of them (perhaps with slightly rosey glasses). Have there been times when that bit me on the butt? Yes. It hurt, and it changed the dynamics of trust the next time the equation came up, but only with regard to the specific area in which trust was betrayed. The good news is that I am learning to recognize when trust has been abused a little more quickly I expect a lot from the people I call friends -- those I welcome into my figurative Circle. That is the main core of where trust lies (that and with Spirit). You cannot choose family (and not everyone in everybody's family deserves trust), but you can choose Circle/Tribe. If you do so wisely, these will be people worthy of perfect trust. However, I must warn that all of us are prone to screw ups. Even the most trusted of friends can (and will) periodically fail on a trust issue, often simpy by not realizing something was said/done in that all-elusive "trust". Thus I would counsel all of us to make our definitions of trust clear and to delineate what is being said and done in confidence and what is open for sharing. If you do not, you cannot blame another for purportedly breaking your trust -- they broke nothing! You never told them! Along the same lines I think we need to make room for people to be people (to err is human to forgive...). I will generally give people more than one chance in the trust arena because it's not something to which we're overly accustom to upholding in a superficial "do as I say, not as I do" society. |
| Trust For Me Is A Very Important Issue, And A Difficult One... | Jun 13th. at 4:15:38 pm EDT |
| Aedh Rua (Prophetstown, Illinois US) | Age: 35 - Email |
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Trust for me is a very important issue, and a difficult one. When and whom to trust, and how much, is for me one of the hardest and most painful of life questions. Right now, I trust at most one or two other people, both of whom I have known for many years. Both of these people earned my trust by long years of honesty, integrity, and just by not betraying me in that period of time. Other than this, I trust no one, and nothing -- no organization, no cause, no movement, no group. I am not even totally sure of the Gods, though I try to trust them. I try very, very, hard. Pagans talk very much about trust. It is one of the few topics of discussion, or points of rhetoric shared by both Wiccan-type neo-Pagans, and Asatru-type Heathens. Unfortunately, neither Pagans nor Heathens seem to act on it very well, but instead betray one another's trust routinely. Gossip, backbiting, and dirty personal politics are, it would seem, staples of almost every movement or group, including Paganism. My own trust has been betrayed, many, many times, by a lot of people. I have betrayed the trust of others at various times, but I wish never to do so again. The saddest thing, to me, is that trust and the sense of trust are really at the center of Pagan spirituality. In many Wiccan circles, the password is "Perfect Love and Perfect Trust". It is how Pagans are supposed to come to the circle, how we are supposed to relate to one another, the core of our tribal community. So, why is it that most covens break up rancorously, and so many Pagans turn on one another? We must do better, if we wish to survive as a people, if we wish to be worthy of survival. |
| Who Do You Trust? I Trust That Most People Have Grievances Against... | Jun 14th. at 12:07:44 am EDT |
| Perrin (Denver, Colorado US) | Age: 24 |
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Who Do You Trust? I trust that most people have grievances against me for various reasons, some real, some not. Most of the people I trusted prior to this site stabbed me in the back to the point where I almost had to kill my best friend, but I showed some mercy, and let him live, albeit without clothes so that I could escape, but he is alive some where, hunting me. I think to some extent all of us have been betrayed in some manner, or most of us would not be here. Trust is also a fleeting thing, which is gone like the wind, or so the old proverbs say, & I cann't say I've found it any different today. I suppose for those like us we cann't trust our own eyes, and after what was done to mine I will never be able to again. I can not fully relate all the times I have been betrayed, it would fill your site with hatred, and most of your members would never go back to this site, but suffice it to say I trust 3 people, me, myself, and I, and they are I will ever trust again. I like your site, it gives people a hope that tommorrow will be better, that there might be fewer betrayals, I doubt it, but may be it will happen that way. If anyone comes accross a church called Beth Eden stay well away from it, and the people inside, or you might not come back out, sane any way. |
| After Much Reflection, I Conclude That I Trust Implicitly Only My Husband... | Jun 14th. at 10:06:20 am EDT |
| Susan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan CA) | Age: 34 |
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After much reflection, I conclude that I trust implicitly only my husband and one very dear girlfriend. I feel saddened that I can not trust my immediate family. I also conclude that I can not fully trust myself - promises I have made I have broken, confidences that I should have kept I have not. I have much work to do. |
| In My Opinion, Trust *must* Be *earned*. Quite Honestly, There Are Very... | Jun 14th. at 2:28:38 pm EDT |
| Silverfire (Garland, Texas US) | Age: 17 - Email |
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In my opinion, trust *must* be *earned*. Quite honestly, there are very few people in my life that I trust- only one of them in my immediate family (my mother- one of the most incredible people in the world). The other three are very close friends, any of whom I would willingly trust my life to. Do I trust myself? No. Why? I've broken too many promises in my life- both to myself and others. Has my trust ever been betrayed? Many times, most of them by the same person- my father. When I was younger I felt that it was my duty to trust him completely and so I opened myself to a world of hurt and pain. Eventually I learned better but then he would start asking me 'why don't you trust me?' especially when I was reluctant to answer a question that I knew would set him off. Then he would go off on one of his guilt trips.... he really should be a travel agent.... |
| I Think I Trust People Easily. I Don't Want To Think Bad... | Jun 14th. at 3:53:44 pm EDT |
| Jane Spacebat (Edinburgh, Scotland UK) | Age: 20 - Email |
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I think I trust people easily. I don't want to think bad things and mistrust people, so I approach people with an open mind and trust. I guess I have been let down by people, but now I'm older it's easier to move on and not hold grudges. I trust my parents, my boyfriend/bestfriend, my friends. I don't trust my dog! Dogs are completely untrustworthy, especially around food. I do trust that she will love me (and I will love her) unconditionally. I don't trust the government too much and I especially distrust the president of the US- look what he is promising to do to our planet!!! I think that because I trust my boyfriend so completely, we have a better relationship than a lot of people I know. I try to be trustworthy and always keep my promises, give as much help as I can. One thing I've learnt is never to promise too much.... My definition of trust is a sort of agreement that both parties aren't going to hurt each other, and are coming together for the greater good, not bad. I hope this makes some sense... |
| It Would Be Hard For Me To Pick One Or Two People... | Jun 15th. at 2:24:13 pm EDT |
| Phoenix (Houston, Texas US) | Age: 29 - Email |
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It would be hard for me to pick one or two people that I trust. SO without leaving anyone out, I would have to say my family, my coven, and my closest friends. BUT, to put a few in the spotlight, I would have to say two that stand out the most are my father, and my Master Priestess. My Master Priestess and I have been friends for about 15 years, and she was with me through most, if not all my life's trials. It is because of her that I owe a major amount of gratitude for the person that I became. I trust her decisions, and I trust her with my life as she does with me. We look out for one another and if one has a problem, there is never a hesitation as to the following action. We do not think about it, we just take care of business. I am her security, personal advisor, and her favorite "trusted" driver. She helped me to "grow up" and realize life through the eyes of reality, which at the age of 17 was null and void. My father on the other hand, was also a major contributor to who I am today. He always kept me in check and was there for advice when I needed it most. I trust him with my life as well and trust that his deciions are for the best interest of me. He never tried to say anything ot me just to make me feel good. It was always the truth whether I wanted to hear it or not. He built my integrity and he built my perseverence to see things through. To both of them, I take a bow out of respect for your time to care about me and make sure I didn't stray off the beaten path too far. For this I am eternally greatful! I look forward to the coming years of continuing growth |
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