Trust

My girlfriend could destroy me.  Literally, she has the power to break my heart and destroy me in so many ways.

I trust her not to.  Our relationship started off with us giving each other a little bit of trust.  When we learnt that we were safe giving trust to one another, we kept on giving each other more and more.

Trust isn’t actually given.  It’s reciprocated.

You can’t give someone trust and expect something back.  In fact doing so makes you untrustworthy and manipulative.  If you give someone trust and expect absolutely nothing back and the person you have given the trust to doesn’t abuse this and gives you something back in return then trust has been built.

There are certain organisations (e.g. Netflix) that give trust to their employees by giving them unlimited vacation time.  Trust was given with no expectation of anything in return.  This trust was reciprocated by the employees by not abusing this privilege.

This realisation really made me change the way I see relationships (whether that be with family, friends, or an employee/employer).  It really shines light on why we trust and are loyal to some people and why we are not necessarily loyal to others and with certain organisations/employers.