Trust is a fragile gift

51

We have many squirrels that come around our yard; perhaps fewer since we made it impossible for them to get at the bird feeder. There are a few that still come around to see what’s fallen to the ground below. This is the first squirrel to be bold and trusting enough to take peanuts from our hands. 

I posted some images of our peanut-trust-building with said squirrel and a FB friend mentioned that she calls all the squirrels out at her facility “Bob”. So our squirrel also became “Bob”.

It was only a day later that we realized that Bob was a girl….but Bob has stuck and so Bob she remains.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Bob is a little too friendly …. either that or peanuts are the squirrel equivalent of crack to her, because she is really courageous in her quest for more peanuts. We’ve had to chase her out of the house a few times as she shuffles, in bit by bit, when the french doors are open. We are relatively certain that someone else in the neighbourhood must be feeding her as well because she took peanuts from our hands faster than we would expect if the case were otherwise.

Even though she is bold because she wants something, she isn’t really all that trusting.

As I watched her from the deck seating, she went for a drink at the bird bath and, even though she turned her back on me, she didn’t trust me well enough to not keep at least one eye on me as she drank and leaned awkwardly as she quenched her thirst.

_______

People really aren’t so different from animals in that respect. When someone repeatedly harms a relationship, the other party eventually becomes unwilling to provide trust any longer.

Trust is fragile.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dennisjaffe/2018/12/05/the-essential-importance-of-trust-how-to-build-it-or-restore-it/?sh=706186a964fe

When trust disappears, loyalty and respect tend to go out the window as well.

When you lose someone’s trust, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to ever fully gain it back. Particularly when it is repeatedly broken. There are only so many chances in the deck….but some people seem to think that they have an entire deck of “Get out of Jail Free” cards…they are either oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge the harm they have repeatedly delivered.

Maintaining trust is like tending a garden; without ongoing attention, without watering and fertilizing the things you want to grow, without pulling the weeds that choke out and poison the rest of the garden, the garden will eventually wither and die and only the weeds will remain, growing unchecked. 

Gardening is hard work; it takes care and effort. Lazy gardeners have weedy gardens, which, if you prefer weeds…is preferable for some by all appearances.

When we trust others, we have an expectation that they will have our back in a tough situation, that they will stand by and support us when we are threatened in some fundamental way. Trust is an abstract mental attitude toward a proposition that someone is dependable. It is a feeling of confidence and security that another party cares in some way. When the individual in whom we have placed trust doesn’t stand for us in a particular situation & betrays our expectation for support, then we can’t trust them in the future, they are no longer dependable.

Eventually we can find peanuts elsewhere, particularly when the one in whom we have lost trust withholds an honest apology and fails to take any responsibility or personal accountability for their actions and impacts on others. It’s unfortunate that failure will hold them back and in the end, the loss is theirs as others choose distance.

Regaining trust requires changed behaviour.