Would you trust me?
I trust you. I trust you will do your best. I trust your intention is not to hurt me, even if your choices sometimes do. I trust you will make choices you can live with. I trust you to trust me enough to allow yourself to make mistakes. I trust you to trust me enough to have the courage to ask for my help when you need it. I trust you to want me to be the best that I can be. I trust you because I want you to be the best you can be.
What if the above was a contract we would make with everyone in our lives?
I used to have my apartment on Airbnb since I travel quite a bit. Eventually I removed it, just because I’m too lazy to handle the logistics of it. This week, over lunch with a friend, we talked about Airbnb and our experiences and thoughts around it. I caught myself thinking that I don’t know if I’d trust a stranger with my apartment with all my things in it, despite knowing that Airbnb designs for trust.
In general, I tend to believe that most people are good people, so why was I so hesitant in this trust issue? Could it be because of the news everyday telling us about terrorists, murderers, rapists, and what not? Have I let the rhetoric of fear get under my skin and affect how I think about my fellow humans?
At work I have occasionally encountered situations where someone I work together with has consciously withheld information from me. Maybe that person was trying to somehow protect their own value in the organization by holding information only they had. Maybe that person wanted to look smart at a later instance, showing they knew something I didn’t, and that would have been useful to me. Maybe that person genuinely thought that some small pieces of information was what constituted their value for our organization, and that sharing that information would render them dispensable.
What it made me feel was that this is not a person I will go to in the future when I need help with something. There was no opportunity for trust, only competition in a zero sum game.
I’m quite an outgoing person with many friends and vast networks. I’m also quite open about many things (as you might have noticed in this blog). I consider myself trustworthy. If you need help and I can help, I will. If you need someone to listen to you and not gossip about your stuff behind your back, I’m your girl. Despite all this, there are very few people I really, really trust. Why? I don’t really know…I guess I’m just accustomed to taking care of my own business and not bother others with it.
Uhm, that is true, but it’s not the whole truth. Another part is the true cost of trust, which is vulnerability. Trusting someone is taking a risk, you open yourself up for the possibility of disappointment.
I’m going to venture out and make a comparison that might not make sense at all to you.
Think about our society today. It is built around a system of capitalism. Even though there are the odd professional risk takers (VCs and such) much of our society is built around the premise of mitigating risk. The foundations of this society were laid in a time that was much more stable than the world today (considering societal power structures and technological change). Mitigating risk means avoiding change. It means trying to hold on to status quo, even if that status quo is not the best we are capable of. The only reason to avoid change is to be able to control a situation. And since capitalism is all about constant growth of profit, an environment which can be controlled is favorable, because it is predictable. But today the world is changing rapidly, and new alternatives are emerging.
Information is shared faster than ever before. A movement like a school strike for the climate by one person in Sweden can spread to the whole world.
Concepts of ownership and consumer behavior are being challenged by the sharing economy with companies like Airbnb which I mentioned in the beginning of this post.
Community care, which is difficult to monetize, is challenging the idea of self-care, a concept that has been heavily monetized through self-help books and retreats of all kinds just to mention a few.
These changes do two things; they challenge structures of power (read money) and they ask us to engage with, and trust each other.
In this light, the rhetoric of fear makes sense, because it helps those with power hold on to it by limiting our willingness to trust.
What I’m trying to say is, if you think about your own life, and the people around you, I’m sure you are the best version of yourself in environments where you experience trust. Where you feel that even if you’d fail, there are people around you to help you get back on your feet. Where you feel safe enough to take a risk, like starting your own business. Where you can let your guard down, and unleash your creativity. That environment is where you can reach your full potential.
In short, my comparison is, a life without trust, is like a society based on capitalism: Striving for predictability instead of for the best that it could be.
Where there is a lack of trust, things tend to eventually fall apart. Just saying.
I want my life to be the best that it can be, therefore I challenge myself to say to all of you:
I trust you. I trust you will do your best. I trust your intention is not to hurt me, even if your choices sometimes do. I trust you will make choices you can live with. I trust you to trust me enough to allow yourself to make mistakes. I trust you to trust me enough to have the courage to ask for my help when you need it. I trust you to want me to be the best that I can be. I trust you because I want you to be the best you can be.
What would happen if we all did this?
