Last month I did an entire series of articles on honesty, and it’s a pretty tough subject to talk about. However, what often goes hand-in-hand with that is another heavy-hitter: Trust. They are definitely two sides of the same coin. If you’re not honest with someone, and they find out, trust is instantly a goner. Trust is one of those things that is, at worst, irreparable – at best, the toughest thing to regain.
When you are honest with someone, that connection of trust builds up and gets stronger. When you’re dishonest, trust goes washing right under the bridge you just burned. However, the opposite is equally true: When you trust someone, you are naturally honest with them. When there’s no trust between two people, well, you might as well be a used car salesman (no offense to my used car salesman friends out there).
So, which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Trust or honesty? My opinion is that they are so connected that you can’t really say which one comes before the other. They are always working together in a symbiotic relationship. The interconnection between the two cannot be separated, even by the smoothest of talkers. Honesty may be used to build trust, but trust is sometimes necessary in order to be fully honest. I know, it’s a treacherous road, but it’s one that we all have to tread in every relationship we have in our lives.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to take a look at trust in various types of relationships and how it may be damaging or helping your personal interactions. Of course, I want nothing than to encourage your relationships to grow stronger, so a good deal of my focus is going to be about how to make things better even when they have started to go wrong. Or, better yet, how to avoid that sort of painful situation to start. I welcome your feedback and stories of what you have experienced when it comes to this delicate two-sided coin we all carry in our lives. What kind of story do you have to share?
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