If you live in a modern large city, then chances are you have to interact with literally hundreds of people each day, maneuvering to get onto the elevator, onto and off the train, through the doors of an office block, or wait in line to be served for lunch, apart from shopping at a supermarket. Then there are those people who we call our family and friends and those who we class as just acquaintances.  
  In this data overloaded environment, that is a modern city, we no longer have the time or necessarily the patience to approach communication with others slowly. A hundred years ago, it was considered proper behaviour that a person first receive an "introduction" either by letter or in person before approaching another. As archaic as such a system may sound to us today, it allowed in large part a filter mechanism of confidence thanks to those who provided the introduction in the character of those we then met.  
  Today, the art of conversation and contact has been replaced with a "just the facts" approach. Like changing channels, our conversation time has become less about communicating than data exchange, whereby one person "downloads" to the other person and then the other tries to do the same before moving onto the next urgent task of the day.  
  In such an environment, it is understandable that we rely heavily on assumed confidence that those we meet are who they are, and mean what they say and say they will do. For if we were to start to question and doubt the integrity of what people around us say, then very quickly we would find it next to impossible to live in such an environment, given the volume of interactions and the constant requirement to check and test every bit of information that comes to us.  
  That is why the concept of trust is so critical to the function of human relationships, especially so in the modern high information world we live in.  
  The critical concept of trust  
  The word trust comes from the Medieval English word traiste meaning " to have faith or confidence; to place reliance; to confide". Hence to "trust" something is to be confident in the reliability that something is what it seems.  
  Unlike words such as verify and validity, trust is the assumed belief something is true. In many cases the evidence that we accept to make such a judgment may be superficial and in many cases may simply be on face value e.g."he is wearing a suit, looks like a good person and appears to act like one."  
  Thus the loss of trust in people can be one of the most crippling episodes to people who experience it, as opposed to the people who caused it.  
  We rely on trust to be able to communicate and to communicate quickly an efficiently. What would happen if we did not believe what we read in the papers, or did not believe what was said on television, or even doubted the words of our friends and our families? In such a situation, we might describe such a notion as paranoia.  
  Yet is it justified to quickly dismiss the concept that almost everyone we meet and everything we read is in some way a persons interpretation of events that actually happened or are happening. That the human input of interpretation, given our inability to capture a complete and true picture means we will always get certain slants on the true nature of information. It is on this basis that studies around the world have shown that almost every person in some way says lies, sometimes hundreds , sometimes a few each day. That’s a few dozen lies each and almost everyone of us say to others each and every day.  
  Your own perspective on this emotion    
  In reading this page, you may be someone who is currently feeling the effects of a breach of your personal trust by another person. Alternatively you might be someone who is experiencing the inner conflict that comes with trying to maintain a lie- remembering two stories the real and the imaginary.  
  Honesty and our concept of some absolute    
  Whatever our beliefs, whatever our faith in God, Allah, One Spirit or Unique Collective Awareness. , each of has some basic realization that in at least someone else's eyes the truth is known. That whatever lies we tell, there is at least someone else watching. And so with dishonesty often comes the inner pain of regret and guilt.    
  Finding answers    
  You might be interested in finding more answers in relation to this emotion. If this is the case then the Journey of Self might be of interest.  
  If you would like a practical answer and something that may help you in relation to this issue right now, then please click on reflections to see one or more reflections you can immediately use about this issue.  
 
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