Trust Is Good-It Doesn't Mean You Have To Be Naive

Well maybe sometimes trust and being naive do go hand in hand. Me personally, I’d rather be naive and trust freely than to start worrying about people’s possible motives.

(Photo courtesy of Miguel de Luis )

In my 40 years on this earth because of my inherent trust of people, I have been labeled many things. My favorite so called insult is being called a salesman’s dream. I actually like that one because being married to someone who is in sales, I like to think I am his dream. I have also been labelled gullible and of course I have been called naive.

The label I have been most tagged with is being too trusting. I don’t see that as a defect in me. I am actually proud of that trait. Give me someone who is too trusting over someone who is cynical any day of the week.

So why is trust so important? Because it helps us see the best in people. It helps us believe the best of the world.

My husband is a bit more skeptical than me. He would probably beg to differ and just call it being realistic. When I relate certain events or conversations to him, he is usually the one to pull my head out of the clouds and try and help me plant my feet on the ground. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t.

Sometimes my husband manages to convince me that maybe there is a hidden interest somewhere or that maybe the person’s motives weren’t all that altruistic. Other times I prove him wrong. We both read people well but in different aspects. He reads people’s body language and motives well. I read people’s emotions well. Neither of us are foolproof though.

Why is the issue of trust on my mind? Because without trust you start to doubt everyone and everything. I am a natural truster. I wear my heart on the sleeve. What you see is what you get.

Having recently joined the blogging community, I am still learning the ropes. I have been on a mothering forum for about three years but blogland is a little different than the community I am used to online. People blog because they have something to share with the world. For some it is about their everyday lives, for others it is about a bigger message. While I personally do blog for myself, I also want people to read what I write. If not I would not be online.

(Photo courtesy of Mike Licht )

Blogging like everything else in life is about networking and who you know. One way of getting new readers is to read and comment on other people’s blogs. I had a hard time with myself because I do think I am authentic and only want to comment on things that either make me laugh or touch me, not just to get someone else to my blog. Here and there I found myself commenting on things that I would not normally comment on. That’s when I caught myself, because I also started to wonder whether or not others are commenting on my posts for the wrong reasons. I started to lose my trust and my ability to judge people and their authenticity. If I could get sucked into this so easily, so can lots of others.

So I have decided to be true to myself. To find and follow the blogs that make me happy, that make me think or the blogs whose authors I feel I have a connection to.

I want to continue to be a trusting person even if it means that sometimes I continue to be naive.

About these ads