The Importance of Trust in Society

The exploration of emotions and inner thoughts is looked at as a subconscious cry for attention. Labeled as feminine or weak, those who wish to adventure into this image of openness stray away and find themselves alone. Exposing your vulnerabilities with the mindset that they will not be exploited is how trust is created. Mankind strives for companionship on all levels, but how can we have these relationships without the notion of trust? To fully identify the elements that form this idea, we must analyze how inevitable trust is to society. The absence of this emotion leaves us more vulnerable than when first attempting to form it with one another. Once we understand how trust works, we can learn to build it, and it builds us.

Understanding trust involves understanding what forms trust. Just from reviewing history we can see that integrity has a major impact when creating trusting relationships. Having integrity offers the question of are you an ethical person? Can you be relied on? With integrity comes competence and ensuring that you have the ability to do what needs to be done. Although these components can pave the way for a trusting relationship, the issue is how to judge whether someone is capable of illustrating a trusting relationship. The foundation for trust has been set for centuries and continues to live in society today.

Historians have shown us how trust has been incorporated within day-to-day lives from the beginning of time. The psychological need for loyalty and companionship seems absolutely essential for our kind, yet modern day influencers declare we should not rely on anyone but ourselves. But is this relevant in all relationships? Looking at the foundation for trust within companionship, it seems as though there is a gradual process that requires a form of social, mental and physical interactions. This trust between two individuals in relation to a companionship [of any sort] relies on the predictability and dependability of each party surfacing. In some cases, intense sacrifices may be inevitable to be responsive to one another’s needs within the confines of this companionship. These steps leading up to true trust in companionship are what drive some individuals to give up and resort back to the theory that we should only rely on ourselves. Rather than continue and work hard for the relationship, we have some who choose to cheat their way through the process and end up losing all faith in trust as it crumbles to the ground. Scientists say to achieve a true sense of trust within companionship we must go above and beyond the available information and have faith in one another. This concept is not new to society as a whole, yet as the days grow old, we see a decrease in steady trusting companionships and a rise in defensive, skeptic individuals.

A society without trust is a society without unity. It is important for society members to trust not only each other, but the systems within the community. When you board a plane, you are trusting that the man in the captains’ chair knows how to fly a plane. Every year more citizens start to distrust the government and other society members, some for cause and some for association. This idea of distrust by association is what creates what we call a broken society. Mistrust within a community can lead to a lack of empathy, dishonesty, passive-aggression, and violence; some of these may seem harmless in small amounts but can threaten the society in its entirety if gone untouched. The consequences of any of the elements listed above can source corruption and disloyalty nationwide.

Applying a solid foundation of integrity, competence and patience allows for the best form a trust to emerge. Seeing how trust is formed, and what society would be like without it, is a statement for its importance. Although we see a negative view on trusting each other, the world would not function without it. Labeling trust weak and feminine may have an outer affect, but everyone incorporates it within their lives behind the scenes. The key to a successful and complete society relies on the integrity, competence, patience, and trustworthiness of our community members, even when we deny its very existence.