Doubts about trust

doubt
–verb (used with object)
1. to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
2. to distrust.

Doubt is such a hard thing to deal with. You have to be either extremely confident or apathetic not to doubt things and people. It's hard to believe what you can't see with your own two eyes. The problem is that the one clear way to eliminate doubt is to trust somebody and trust is not something you can see or really experience with your senses. It's an idea that you can rely on someone or something not to change. It's the principle that you can put blind faith into something with the assurance that everything is going to be alright. And quite frankly, in the world we live in today it's so hard to believe that things won't turn upside down, or that people won't abandon you at the first sign of problems.

I'm talking about trust and doubt because not only do they go hand in hand, but in living the life that I do I've been able to become a frequent observer of betrayals and lies thrust upon ordinary individuals. Having a behind-the-scenes look at all of these deceptions have contributed to the worry of becoming jaded. How can we ever know who won't be the first one to leave when the going gets tough? Did Jesus know that Judas would sell him out for a couple of coins? Did Blair expect her best friend Serena to sleep with her boyfriend Nate? Deception has been around for centuries and is sprinkled across pop culture and has become a standard part of society.

I don't know if it's become too hard to ask of people to be honest. Or maybe circumstances have just made it harder. I've seen first hand what people will do and it's hard to contemplate. It definitely fuels the doubt that I have about people. If someone can do something so effortlessly, than isn't it possible that they could be doing something to you as well without you even knowing it?

Living in paranoia isn't the answer, although that last sentence probably makes it sound like I'm a bit paranoid. It just seems like lately there have been a lot of scandals and I'm not sure when it became okay to behave this way. I think the only thing you can do is surround yourself with people that don't make a living out of talking about others every chance they get. Surround yourself with people that don't need to cheat or lie to get through the tangled webs that they weave.