TRUST BETRAYED

Is People’s Inability to Trust Undermining our Ability to deal with our Envinironmental and Social Crises?

Without trust civil society crumbles into dust.     – G. Kubanek

Yesterday I was at my bank waiting in line and overheard this statement from an older man who usually spends his winters in Florida:  “I usually withdraw American dollars now for my winter stay in Florida but because I DON’T TRUST the government not to change the rules again I am not going this year.”  It took me reflecting on my day in the evening [an activity I do every day, so as to learn from my experiences] to realize that his feelings were telling me a lot about the state of our civil society. The fact is little incidents like are connected, in my mind, to horrific events like the SUV who drove into the crowd in Wisconsin and killed 5. Why are many people are not wanting to be vaccinated? Lack of trust. Why do many people not “believe” in the climate disaster? Lack of trust in Science and the politicians. Why are people reverting to driving their car instead of taking public transit in Ottawa? Lack of trust. Why have so many of my friends divorced? Lack of trust. Why is so hard to teach online? Lack of trust as so many students cheat.  The list is endless. When I look around me it makes me think that the quote I used in a recent essay for CACOR by Jordan Pederson, entitled “ The collapse of our values is a greater threat than climate change” may be true.

                                    Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.

The logic as to why I am considering agreeing with Pederson is simple: I am convinced that almost any external challenge we have can be over when we work together. However, this high degree of cooperation is only possible if we trust each other. And I don’t mean partially, I mean totally. I mean implicitly. I mean we trust each other like we trust the sun to rise tomorrow morning. Now trust is a type of belief and whether you like it or not, whether you of a spiritual nature or not, the evidence of overwhelming that for human beings the most powerful force we have in belief. What we believe in becomes reality. Now, it could correctly be argues that the reverse if also true – I can accept that. This cycle in fact supports the research on how our brain works that I have read: our brain creates fictional simplifications of reality [because the real world is too messy to make sense of otherwise] to allow it to make decisions to support its survival and then acts in the real world to change it based upon these fictitious simplifications.

Well, one of those fictitious simplifications we need to live in a civil society, and overcome challenges such as the climate disruption and 6^th mass extinction and housing crisis in Canada, is trust. Without trust in our friends, our neighbours, our business and political leaders – without believing that they are striving for the common good, we are doomed. And based upon the older man I heard at my bank that trust is in doubt.

                                                          Trust is like blood pressure.

                      It’s silent, vital to good health, and if abused, it is deadly.    – Frank Sonnenberg

So, what can you do about this? Quite simply, EARN people’s trust, for trust is not given as some say, it is earned. Be on time. If you are ignorant on an issue that matters to you don’t accept your own ignorance, learn about it. But don’t stop there, for learning is, in my opinion, only one leg that that allows you to walk, the other being action. Whatever job you do or organization you belong to be the one people can count on. Of course, don’t burn yourself out being a hero, that helps nobody, but within your limits [and be sure you know them] earn people’s trust. Here are some tips.

1. Get in the trenches and help Take off your jacket. Roll up your sleeves. Ask what you can give. You cannot always help – only in ways that are your gifts, so, you need first to know your gifts and capitalize on them.
2. Admitting to your mistakes. When was the last time you embraced a mistake as a ready-made opportunity to build trust? How did you leverage it – share it – for others’ benefit?
3. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

Finally, remember you are never alone. You are not a hero if you are alone because every human effort is a team effort. If you focus on building up our trust in each other so we trust what we hear from our leaders and our neighbours I am quite sure our external environmental social challenges will soon be history – but ONLY after that trust is built. One word and one deed at a time.

I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that I can no longer trust you.     – F. Nietzsche