Trust

The cornerstone of all relationships.

- Santosh Pattanaik

The length of any relationship, indeed the depth and breadth of any relationship depends on one and only one thing - Trust in that relationship. Any relationship can create a myriad of emotions: joy, sadness, anger or fear, pleasure or disgust, surprise, pride, shame, embarrassment, excitement. But one emotion describes the fundamental building block critical in any and every meaningful relationship - that is TRUST. Perhaps that's why George McDonald, the renowned preacher said, “It is a greater compliment to be trusted than loved.”

There are just a few elemental forces that hold our world together. The one that's the glue of society is called trust. From an individual level to the relationship between global powers, trust drives decisions. It is critical for romantic relationships, friendships, interactions between strangers, and social groups on a large scale, and a lack of trust in such scenarios can come with serious consequences. Indeed, society as a whole would likely fail to function in the absence of trust.

Its presence cements relationships by allowing people to live and work together, feel safe and belong to a group, while the absence of trust can cause fragmentation, conflict and even war. That’s why we need to trust our leaders, our family members, our friends and our coworkers, albeit in different ways.

What is trust? Trust is hard to define, but we do know when it’s lost. Its presence often goes without notice but its absence is hard to miss. Trust is like air: we only see it when it is polluted. Again, trust is like a vase. Once it’s broken, though you can fix it, the vase will never be the same again. You can’t buy trust in the supermarket.

Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Trust is when you absolutely believe in the character of a person such as you have a blind faith that no matter the transaction, the person will not bring any harm whatsoever to you.