Incomparable trust.

The foundation of trust.

“Honesty is the best and the most expensive gift you can give to someone. It brings trust. It makes you trustworthy, which is priceless. Remember, trust cannot be purchased, learned or acquired. It has to be earned. Trust based on honesty is the foundation of strong and bonding relationships. Lead an honest and happy Life. Because If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything”—Mark Twain

MT’s straight-forward wisdom here looks very obscure and aberrant given the deceptive nature of our smoke and mirrors world. Style and pretense have become the common currency of human relationships, from the interpersonal all the way to the international. This latter has become so pervasive that hardly anyone can tell the difference between the prevaricator and an honest person. Not good material for building and establishing trust. And as MT says, “…trust cannot be purchased, learned or acquired. It has to be earned.” What he didn’t say (but needs to be added) is, trust is the most expensive thing in the world. It takes years to earn and a mere flash of lightening to lose. Once gone, it stays gone.

An egregiously bitter pill to swallow is when you give your trust to someone, with the assurance they will not let you down, only to discover that your confidence was misplaced. The ensuing blow to the fabric of such a relationship is crushing and forces a realignment based on doubt. Then the games begin of guarding your flank and feinting deception to preserve what’s left of the relationship. 

“If there comes a time to choose between money and trust, choose trust, because money can be earned back, but not trust.”—Kapil Jain