“It is not at all necessary for you to make a fortune, but it is necessary, absolutely necessary, that you should become a fair-dealing, honorable, useful man, radiating goodness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and making your life a blessing” – Robert Waters

When you ask people if trust is important to them most will tell you that it is very important.  If you ask the same people to explain what trust is, they are hard pressed to give an answer.  We all want trust because we think it will be good for us and protect us from hurt, but to explain just what trust looks like is a bit out of our range.  Trust runs a close second to explaining what love is.

So, who are the people you trust and why?  For many of us it would be a spouse, our parents or close friends.  These are people we should trust or rather should earn our trust.  Yet, for many they have been betrayed by the one they love or hurt by their parents and suffered at the carelessness of thoughtless friends.

Here is the simple truth about trust: 1) we can trust people who do not tell us what we want to hear but what we need to hear.  Who will not hurt us with the truth but build us up with it.  Henry Ford said “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”  2) It is far more important that we can be trusted than that we trust others.  When people know you care and are trustworthy they will return the quality back to you.  Trust always starts with thinking of others first.  Ask yourself if you can be trusted more than whom you can trust.  It is like Dale Carnegie use to say, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

The very best way to recognize trustworthy people is to be trustworthy yourself.  You must know what it is in one’s character that makes them trustworthy by developing it in your character.  When you are known as a trustworthy person, other trustworthy people will be drawn to you.  We are all drawn to the people we are most like.  You will seldom find people who are trustworthy hanging around people who cannot be trusted.  This is why it is so very important that you choose your friends wisely.  As Businessman and author W. Clement Stone said “Be careful of the friends you choose for you will become like them.”

              That warning has a positive side too.  If you choose friends of good character and who are trustworthy you will become like them as well.  George Washington knew this when he wrote, “Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”  Be the person others can trust and who others can look up to.  Then you will find those who you in turn can trust and look up to.  It is not a pride thing or looking down on others, but rather being the example that brings others up to a higher level.  I like how Sydney J. Harris described a friend: “A real friend warms you by his presence, trusts you with his secrets, and remembers you in his prayers.”

 © 2012 John Patrick Hickey