Trustworthiness

2 CommentsArts, betrayal, Booker T. Washington, Business, expectation, goodness, Human, Self control, trust, trustworthiness, Uncategorized, Virtue

We all value trustworthiness.

Most of us try to be trustworthy ourselves and we look for it in others. When other people fail to be worthy of our trust, we chide ourselves for trusting and determine never to trust anyone ever again.

Maybe there’ s another way to look at it.

Clearly it’s foolish to insist that trustworthiness exists when we have evidence to the contrary – however the solution is not to stop trusting.

It’s like fool’s gold.

If you were a miner who found some iron pyrite and mistook it for gold, the experience might make you a little more circumspect the next time you thought you’d hit the mother-lode, but it wouldn’t stop you mining and looking for real gold.

Because you’d know that real gold also exists and is worth the search. Just like trustworthiness.

And who knows, given that human beings respond so often to expectation, perhaps searching for trustworthiness can also actually help it to develop in places it has shaky roots?

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.  – Booker T. Washington


 

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* Photograph – Uniformed Mail Carrier with Child in Mail Bag,  c.1913 – USA National Postal Museum – After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.
Persistent URL: http://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?t=5&id=2001&q=A.2006-22
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