Friday, August 08, 2014

On believing in people

"You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible."
Anton Chekhov
Tom Cruise's title character in Jerry Maguire was right: We live in a cynical world. And within that context, it's easy to instantly assume that everyone whose path we cross is similarly cynical, equally deserving of our disbelief and mistrust.

We'd be forgiven for permanently keeping the shields up, for keeping our heads down, for not connecting out of fear of suffering some kind of damage in return.

But as Checkhov so deftly puts it here, life becomes pretty impossible if we choose to leave the trust thing at the door. And as I let his words sink in on this blessedly quiet summer's morning, I realize some of my favorite people, the ones whose very souls seem to inspire those around them, are indeed those who have chosen to take the shields down and trust in others.

Do they get hurt in the process? I'm sure they do on occasion. But I'd still rather be more like them.

So who do YOU trust? And why?

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