How bad is it to not be able to trust in general?

Nothing happened to prompt that question, but it kinda got in my head right now and I figured I should ask. It's said that you shouldn't punish people in the future for the "sins" of people in the past, but the way I see it its equally bad to ignore the past and the lessons learned from said past.

I feel that I was a much warmer person when I was younger and more naive. I grew out of that pretty quickly and now I don't see how my personality can allow myself to feel the same way I used to. It's kinda sad when you think about it, but that's how it is. I can see it's a negative, but just how negative is it?

It's definitely possible to invest too much confidence in people, technology, or institutions. It's probably better to be on the skeptical end of that scale rather than the trusting one.

@golguin: I think many people struggle to strike a good balance. The truth is, trust in this world is important, and we are held back if we can never seem to let go and have some trust. Now, many people as they get older seem to relate trust with willful ignorance of the possible pitfalls of trusting, and while that may be the case for some, that isn't the case for most. And it doesn't have to be the case for you. You can be quite aware of the past while still placing hope in the future. If we expect perfection, we'll never find it anywhere in this world, and so, things letting us down is going to happen. People are going to sometimes break our trust, and it can even be hard to have real enduring trust in ourselves.

Ultimately, you have to come to a choice. In the face of a world with nothing that purely deserves our trust, what do we do? We can either close ourselves off or decide that the risk is worth it. Too many believe that trust must have no doubt, but that's mistaken. No question, trust is a risk. And you go into it willing to acknowledge the risk and still give it a shot. Things may not work out or there will be problems, but the potential result of trusting something or someone is often great enough to take a chance.

are you a teenager

i trust one person outside my family, and i dont trust all my family either.

having a healthy suspicion of people is a good thing i think, just don't let it keep you from making friends and forging relationships. i've been burned alot in the past as well, so i have a really hard time trusting friends, and i actually have an easier time trusting girls than i do guys, and im a straight male.

It's pretty bad.

I don't think you should really trust anyone when you first meet them, nor should you trust the majority of such people once you get to know them better. After all, people are manipulative, deceptive, selfish, and duplicitous by nature. Still, some people are worth trusting, so I'd just recommend finding a good balance between trust and skepticism.

I dunno what kind of person you have in mind when posing this question of trust, but most people you encounter don't need to be trusted. There is also no need to be suspicious of them either. So you can get through life just fine without trusting or being suspicious of anyone. I don't think about such things in my daily life, so my view may be different than someone who has thought about this a lot. But you can't trust someone who thinks about this kind of thing a lot.

You trust Giantbomb enough to open up about this.

There's not enough context to properly address this. I mean, what might've prompted this question? A woman? Friends? Family? For one, I know I'm dealing with a similar situation. I'm a relatively innocent person, extremely trusting and what-not so I have no reason to believe otherwise when it comes to other people. Recent events have made me do a double take when it comes to my expectations in people and how I view things around me.

But honestly mate, you either let the situation strengthen you... or coincidentally, break you.

Depends on how much you like being alone.

People should always earn trust. I don't think that's too much to ask or particularly strange. I only trust those who have proven to be trustworthy. The rest I keep at a distance and only engage casually with.

I trust that most people will either break or take advantage of the trust I give them. This allows me to lead a life "trusting" people (behaving exactly as I would if I did actually trust people) and either being pleasantly surprised or have a plan already in motion to mitigate the breaking of my trust. Also I will never trust anyone again once they have broken my trust.

I think I actually trust 2 or 3 people.

No matter how much you've been hurt, you still need to be able to give others a chance, no matter how hard it may be. Not everyone's going to hurt you, and you don't want to prematurely destroy a good relationship with someone, regardless of whether it's at work, school, romantic, or just a friend, because you assume you're just going to get hurt again.

It's not that bad.

I trust on a case by case basis.

@TruthTellah said:

@golguin: I think many people struggle to strike a good balance. The truth is, trust in this world is important, and we are held back if we can never seem to let go and have some trust. Now, many people as they get older seem to relate trust with willful ignorance of the possible pitfalls of trusting, and while that may be the case for some, that isn't the case for most. And it doesn't have to be the case for you. You can be quite aware of the past while still placing hope in the future. If we expect perfection, we'll never find it anywhere in this world, and so, things letting us down is going to happen. People are going to sometimes break our trust, and it can even be hard to have real enduring trust in ourselves.

Ultimately, you have to come to a choice. In the face of a world with nothing that purely deserves our trust, what do we do? We can either close ourselves off or decide that the risk is worth it. Too many believe that trust must have no doubt, but that's mistaken. No question, trust is a risk. And you go into it willing to acknowledge the risk and still give it a shot. Things may not work out or there will be problems, but the potential result of trusting something or someone is often great enough to take a chance.

Oh wow, that's fucking great. It seems like you do deserve your username, huh? But seriously, i really liked that part in bold.

@MikeGosot said:

@TruthTellah said:

@golguin: I think many people struggle to strike a good balance. The truth is, trust in this world is important, and we are held back if we can never seem to let go and have some trust. Now, many people as they get older seem to relate trust with willful ignorance of the possible pitfalls of trusting, and while that may be the case for some, that isn't the case for most. And it doesn't have to be the case for you. You can be quite aware of the past while still placing hope in the future. If we expect perfection, we'll never find it anywhere in this world, and so, things letting us down is going to happen. People are going to sometimes break our trust, and it can even be hard to have real enduring trust in ourselves.

Ultimately, you have to come to a choice. In the face of a world with nothing that purely deserves our trust, what do we do? We can either close ourselves off or decide that the risk is worth it. Too many believe that trust must have no doubt, but that's mistaken. No question, trust is a risk. And you go into it willing to acknowledge the risk and still give it a shot. Things may not work out or there will be problems, but the potential result of trusting something or someone is often great enough to take a chance.

Oh wow, that's fucking great. It seems like you do deserve your username, huh? But seriously, i really liked that part in bold.

TruthTellah does always live up to his name, that's for sure.

I read the title as "thrust."

It sounds like what your feeling is normal. As you get older it's inevitable that you will be disappointed/hurt. This is a growing process and it's gets easier as you get older. The crossroad though is what you choose to do with this. 1. You could remain untrusting and not give anyone the benefit of the doubt. 2. You can work through the issues that have caused you to feel this way and let go of the anger/bitterness. This is easier said then done, but it is possible. Keep in mind holding on to hurt/anger that was done to you does not hurt the other person. Forgiveness is for your own mental health and just because you can forgive someone does not mean you are "letting them off the hook".

@TruthTellah: I like you, mang. You speak accuracies.

Life requires a mixture of trust and distrust in my opinion. A person has to have people they can trust. Life is hard without those kinds of bonds. No matter what everyone is going to get screwed over by someone at some point. What you do with yourself and how you adjust to overcome those incidents is up to the individual. Everyone's situation is different in that regard. Personally I rely on the people I know I can trust to help me with my distrust in newer people, but that is because I have these lifelong friends who might as well be family at this point living close to me who I can get into contact with at a moments notice.

The way I see it I can put myself out there and risk being betrayed by other people, or I can close myself off and betray myself in doing so. I'd rather do the former, but that's just me.

Pretty bad - start going to therapy instead of forums.

DTA.

@BiffMcBlumpkin said:

I read the title as "thrust."

That's pretty sexy.

Divorce yourself of all emotion and base all of your decisions on logic alone, that is the only way to analyse a persons true intention

I've been watching way to much Star Trek lately

Being unable to generally trust people means you're insecure and/or that you have problems on a personal level. You should always be able to hand out some trust, and no, i'm not saying to blindly swallow everything people throw at you.

Its a balance. You cant trust anyone to much, because then your needs will always come last. You have to trust because you need social contact, My general rule of thumb is that I start out by trusting everyone enough to give them the respect every person deserves and I take it from there.

@golguin said:

Nothing happened to prompt that question, but it kinda got in my head right now and I figured I should ask. It's said that you shouldn't punish people in the future for the "sins" of people in the past, but the way I see it its equally bad to ignore the past and the lessons learned from said past.

I feel that I was a much warmer person when I was younger and more naive. I grew out of that pretty quickly and now I don't see how my personality can allow myself to feel the same way I used to. It's kinda sad when you think about it, but that's how it is. I can see it's a negative, but just how negative is it?

Not that bad. You just have to be careful about it closing off social avenues.

@Jams said:

@MikeGosot said:

@TruthTellah said:

@golguin: I think many people struggle to strike a good balance. The truth is, trust in this world is important, and we are held back if we can never seem to let go and have some trust. Now, many people as they get older seem to relate trust with willful ignorance of the possible pitfalls of trusting, and while that may be the case for some, that isn't the case for most. And it doesn't have to be the case for you. You can be quite aware of the past while still placing hope in the future. If we expect perfection, we'll never find it anywhere in this world, and so, things letting us down is going to happen. People are going to sometimes break our trust, and it can even be hard to have real enduring trust in ourselves.

Ultimately, you have to come to a choice. In the face of a world with nothing that purely deserves our trust, what do we do? We can either close ourselves off or decide that the risk is worth it. Too many believe that trust must have no doubt, but that's mistaken. No question, trust is a risk. And you go into it willing to acknowledge the risk and still give it a shot. Things may not work out or there will be problems, but the potential result of trusting something or someone is often great enough to take a chance.

Oh wow, that's fucking great. It seems like you do deserve your username, huh? But seriously, i really liked that part in bold.

TruthTellah does always live up to his name, that's for sure.

Well, thank you. Both of you are quite kind to say so.