Trustology

Trust is a sacred thing. It is something which we try to gain from others and at the same time, we also put our trust on others. In most cases, it is the very element which holds friendships, relationships or even marriages together. If we have trust, we don’t need to see it with out own eyes.

From the perspective of placing our trust on others, I think there are 2 distinctive approaches.

The first relates to those who trust people rather easily. This group of people function based on what I call the depreciating-trust-mechanism. When a person from this group meets a new soul, the person would easily trust the new soul 100%. Some tend to brand this group of people as pure ‘naïve’. However, these are the people who are generally very optimistic about things and are able to see the bright side even in the darkest of hours.

Why depreciating-trust-mechanism?

Well, since they give a new soul 100% trust, the new soul can only lose it. Failure to live up to expectation will result in a lost of trust. As we live in an imperfect world, the 100% trust placed on the new soul will slowly but surely depreciates over time. This would probably means that people within this group will usually have their heart-broken rather easily.
The second group of people are those who function based on what I call the appreciating-trust-mechanism, the opposite of the former. Naturally, this group is one who does not trust people easily. They are sceptical, pessimistic and always suspicious. Earning trust from this group of people is a challenge for you will have to meet certain standards before you can be trusted. Even that, they might not trust you entirely.

Why appreciating-trust-mechanism?

Appreciating, as the word suggests; means the level of trust goes up as trust is earned. A person from this group will not trust a new soul entirely; perhaps only trusting a new soul 20% after the first meeting. But as time goes by, as the new soul begins to prove that he or she is trustworthy, the level of trust also increases. In a nutshell, people in this group will grow to trust people more as time goes by. Because of the nature of this group, they are not easily disappointed or hurt as they already know… people can't be trusted.

No matter how you decipher the above, we all are swayed towards one of the group one way or another. Subconsciously, we are either depreciating type of the appreciating type, both carry different sets of pro and cons.

As we live our lives in this brutal realistic world, I believe more and more people will move towards to the appreciating type as they suffer set-backs by practising the depreciating mechanism. At the end of the day, more and more people will become less and less trusting on each other. We are wary of each other. When people ask for help in public, we began to put up our defensive walls and walk away. Such is the direction of our society.

But for now, at this instance… which type are you?