trust – noun – reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing: confidence.
Those friends and family that are close to me know that for some time now, I’ve been going through some rather significant emotional swings in my life. Not sure I’d classify these swings as a mid-life crisis, as in my mind, I’m not really having a crisis per se. Not sure I’d say I’m going through “manopause”, because I’m simply to young for that yet! But whatever it is that’s happening in my life, “trust” has become a paramount issue. It’s sort of like a broken record for me, and there’s a list of questions that keep running through my head in almost any situation I’m faced with these days.
Who can I trust? Who trusts me? Should I trust everyone? Should I trust anyone? What is trust anyway? How is trust built? How is trust earned? How is trust lost? Why is trust lost? How is trust different than faith? How is trust different than hope? How can I influence my trust of someone else? How can I influence someone else’s trust in me? Doesn’t all trust come with a certain amount of risk? Can I even trust myself? Eek…that last question scares the hell out of me.
So anyway, I recently had a perfect situation in which many of the questions above came into play. I was up north grouse hunting with my buddy Dave. We were hunting some large hardwood tracts of public land he was somewhat familiar with, but of which I had never been on before. Now, with all due to respect to Dave, I’ve never placed a large amount of trust in his ability to navigate large tracts of land without getting lost. Even he admits that his woodsmanship skills aren’t the greatest. So when we parked at our first hunting area and he informed me we were going on a “2-beer hunt” (the type of hunt that takes you so far away from the truck that you better put 2 beers in your pocket), I have to say that I was a bit nervous. Once again, my broken record of trust questions started going through my head. But what was I to do? I had to trust my friend. I had no choice if I wanted to continue our hunt together. I knew there was a good chance we’d get lost in the next few hours, but the risk would be worth it if the hunting was good, so off we went into the woods.
We hunted for about 3 hours, and the grouse action was outstanding. We had a few grouse in our vests, which seemed to make the fact that it was pouring rain on us the entire time a moot point. We had already drank our second beers, we were sopping wet and muddy from head to toe, and we were both starting to get tired. And that’s when it happened….we got lost in a swamp. Anyone that’s hunted before knows what it’s like to walk through a swamp. It’s difficult and annoying navigation, and is no “walk in the woods” by any means. So after stumbling around in circles for what seemed like eternity, my frustrations got the best of me and I barked at Dave “Get us out of this @!$#ing swamp!” His response was a simple and positive “C’mon Tombo, we’ll be out of here soon”. I must say that Dave’s positive attitude about the situation made me feel better. Besides, I had to trust him at this point because I honestly had no clue where we were. And before long, somehow someway, Dave had led us right to the road where our truck was parked. Whew!
Despite my lack of trust in Dave and his ability to get me out of the woods that day, he somehow pulled it off. I feel terrible that I didn’t give him the respect and trust that he deserved. Given the outcome of the situation, he obviously deserved my trust, but why was I so hesitant to give it to him? I guess that’s why the broken record keeps running through my head. Sometimes trust comes with a certain amount of risk. If we are going to navigate life’s journey successfully, we have to be willing to place trust in ourselves, in others, or in the things we simply cannot control.
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. ~E.M. Forster
