America Has Trust Issues And You Can See Its Effects All Around US

Maybe it’s time we step back and re-evaluate how much trust we actually put in each other.

Trust. A five-letter word that carries so much baggage with it depending on who you are as a person. Some people are too trusting of others, while some just don’t trust enough — and it’s important to find that middle ground.

But that seems to be the problem: we either overshoot or undershoot, and that middle ground is almost nonexistent. And with current events becoming seemingly more despondent, we as a society have started to trust each other a little less as time goes by.

People just do not trust people, and that’s hurting us. I start to wonder if the situation will go so far as to eliminate all feelings of trust and replace them with skepticism.

We see the misuse of the word trust in our day-to-day lives. I mean, I trust my phone more than my friends and I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing.

But what exactly is trust?

Basically, trust is putting faith in someone, or something’s reliability and truth. Great, now how exactly does this impact us in our daily lives? Well, once we start trusting the world will be filled with rainbows, unicorns, and cute cuddly talking animals! Okay, so the world won’t turn into a Disney movie, but it will be better. In reality, trusting one another opens up new doors and opportunities.

Honestly, it makes us what we are: human.

However, we have become complacent. We are so used to this idea of skepticism and doubting everything, we have stopped acknowledging it as a problem. Whether it be the president making a speech about the latest ISIS crisis or the Kardashian/Jenner triple pregnancy drama, we are constantly questioning the major events that are taking place around the world; this way of thinking has transcended into the way we behave with one another.

Rather than reading into the events or researching and creating our own opinions, we just scoff at whatever article or breaking news coming our way and move on in our lives. This has transcended from us scoffing at the media to us mistrusting each other. In order to try and be more comfortable in our lifestyles, we have started becoming selfish, which in turn diminishes the amount of trust we have in others. Yet, this transformation may be resulting in severe consequences, something we don’t realize is happening until it is much too late.

This idea of opening up and trusting more seems very simple and easy to wrap one’s head around. However, as light and simple as this topic may seem, it’s not.

Have you ever really thought about the lack of trust in our own society? Like right here in the oh-so-wonderful America: the land for everyone? Just think about what’s happening around us.

People are being threatened because they look a certain way or practice a certain religion. Immigrants are being seen as outsiders and have started to wonder if they really belong here, living in fear of being forced out of a country they have learned to call home. We are pushing away people looking to us for help for salvation because of what they believe.

People who have nowhere else to go. People who, if they “go back to where they came from,” will probably be killed. People who are putting their lives and their family’s lives at risk just for a better life. That said, this article is in no way a social commentary on the happenings in the United States. Let’s put aside the debate of racism, immigration, and religion for a second and look at the true parasite behind these events.

Trust, or lack thereof.

There’s a lack of trust between immigrants and the government, citizens and police officers; these instances are just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s be honest with each other: how much trust is there between people of different races and religions? How much trust is there between people? People just do not trust those different than themselves… and we are ALL different. Where does that leave us?

Racism, xenophobia, and intolerance spawn from distrust, but that is not the only disease that plagues us. Is there anybody, anybody that you trust with EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING in your life? Sadly, no. The topic of trust may seem small, but it’s the smallest things that seem irrelevant that end up causing the most damage.

And sometimes it may feel like there is nothing that we can do, that this is the way that things are, that the world is going to burn. But, as cliché as it sounds, even the smallest things can make a big difference.

Trusting no one.

Racism, xenophobia, and intolerance spawn from distrust, but that is not the only disease that plagues us. Is there anybody, anybody that you trust with EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING in your life? Sadly, no. The topic of trust may seem small, but it’s the smallest things that seem irrelevant that end up causing the most damage.

And sometimes it may feel like there is nothing that we can do, that this is the way that things are, that the world is going to burn. But, as cliché as it sounds, even the smallest things can make a big difference.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should blindly trust everything that we hear. Obviously, that will get us nowhere. Because if a psycho comes running at you brandishing a knife, you’re not going to stand there trusting that everything will be alright. You’re going to run the other way, I hope, and skedaddle out of there.

A little skepticism and research don’t hurt; it actually progresses us forward. Nonetheless — our attempt to be skeptical about a few things has transformed into our trait of being skeptical about everything. We need to take a good hard look at our society and think, that maybe we should keep a more open perspective rather than just doubting everything. And maybe instead of not trusting people because of how we perceive them to be, we should just treat people as people.

The problem is the concept of trust is not just black or white. There are a few shades of gray scattered throughout, though not quite 50.

By allowing skepticism into our lives, we have let a screen form in front of our eyes that is deterring us from seeing the true beauty in the world and in each other. But once we start to open up just a bit and allow others in, that screen begins to fade.

After all, with a little trust and cooperation we can all work together and make the world a more peaceful place, and who knows? Maybe our generation will be the ones to let a little trust back into the world.

This article was originally published on The Odyssey.com on October 15, 2017.