Extended Definition : Trust

Julien Johansen                                                                                                                      Extended Definition Paper                                                                                                               5/19/15                                                                                                                                             English 32: McDonough

Trust

Trust. It is a strong word with many different meanings. But are they all the same, or do they correspond together? Out of all the things that we want from anyone, trust is perhaps the most vital. But despite the fact that it’s something that we all want, both in ourselves trusting others and others trusting us, it is one of the hardest things to define. Mainly, it is described as a belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. This is a feeling I get a lot and that I understand. I want to be able to trust people and believe what they say, but a lot of the time I’m not able to because I’m afraid it would turn around on me and affect me.

Trust is an important act for me. It helps me establish a basic idea on who is and isn’t “fake” towards me. But, it’s very hard for me to be able to trust people because I don’t know what they’ll do with it. My mom would always tell me how trust is always earned. It isn’t something that you give to people easily. People have to work hard in order to earn it, but unfortunately it can easily be destroyed. I’ve always hated how easily that could happen, and it is why I doubt myself whenever I give people my trust. I personally don’t want to get to the point where it is being used. It’s an unforgettable feeling that doesn’t go away for a very long, long time. There’s no greater pain than having someone you care and love, throw away what they’ve earned. It’s happened to me a few times in my life times so far, and like I said before it’s an unforgettable feeling. You get that sense of insecurity because you don’t know whether or not you want to trust someone else. Back during the summer, I took my permit test and failed. It was my first time taking it and I didn’t study enough for it. I thought it was really embarrassing because most of my friends past it on their first try and if they found out that I didn’t, they would laugh at me. There was only one person who I told and he used my trust and told other people. It was someone who I thought I could trust because I’ve told him so many different things and he never told anyone. But, for some reason this person decided to tell some of my friends that I failed. We were in a group chat, and I was being made fun of for quite a bit of time. Sure they were being funny about it, but it made me realize that I can’t always trust people with what I say. One of the most important aspects of trust is to being able to place confidence in another person.

       There have been instances where others have shown their trust in me. During my second year in high school, it was the only time when I had many female friends because my section that time was very friendly. That was also the only time when many of my friends really trusted me. I had this friend who liked a guy who was also liked by her close friend. She told me that she was falling for the guy who likes her close friend and that her close friend likes the guy too. She did not like their friendship to be affected by her falling for the guy so she just kept it from her close friend. I was close to both of them and I told our friend whom she kept the secret from about it. That incident made my friend who was keeping the secret cry. I made her cry and I do not know why I did such a bad thing that time. I was really sorry and the good thing is that their friendship did not break. My friend just forgot about what I did. Even though the issue was resolved already, my conscience kept killing me up until now. I learned a lot about trust because of that. I learned that trust is a hard thing to regain and you will need to go back to square one just to build it up again.