Entry 9--- You alone, are the most powerful force in your own life. Don’t mistake someone willing to help you out for friendship, many times, they have their own agenda.

        So, I have had trust issues before, and am still not one hundred percent over them.  There are so many people in our lives that we have to take at face value.  I think the crux of the matter is who do you trust to be taken at face value and who do you not trust?  When do you stop trusting them and can you ever trust them again?  When someone tells you “all of this is confidential,” is it really?  I think it depends on that person.  I have found that the only way you can know a person is over a long span of time, say years.  I think observation is the best tool to use to form a judgment to trust someone.  How do they interact with others?  What do they say to someone else after personal interactions?  There are so many variables.  I think that through observation you can identify trends in behavior.  Through identifying these trends, you can then make a decision on whether that person is trust-worthy or not.  It is still like roulette, pretty chancy.  A person that you have trusted for years, can turn around and do something that you thought they never would or never could.  Then it is devastating. 

        I can say that I only trust a very few people.  Those are the people closest to me.  Time and time again, I have placed trust in an individual (not of my trusted circle), and have been burned one way or another.  I also think it comes down to how much you can expect from others.  Their situation and perception may not be or may not allow them to be trust-worthy. 

      I am really what somebody would refer to as being “frank.”  I have little patience or sympathy with someone who has to quantify everything they say or be “politically correct.”    There are too many people out there who will not say what they are really thinking.  Is this a lie of omission?  I am sure you have also heard that old axiom that “silence is permission.”  Yes, it is, even if you agree with the discussion/topic/etc.  Silence does give permission to allow whatever it is to go forward.  So, even if we agree, we should still voice our agreement in support.  Most importantly we should voice our disagreement if we disagree.  This is the “sticky wicket” part.  A person should not disagree, but also give their reasoning for doing so.  A person should have a logical, non-inflammatory argument to back up their stance.  The discussion which ensues should be civil.  Some people only like to be heard, and not hear.  Some people only like to argue/debate and not reach a conclusion, not reach a point where one of the persons is willingly to compromise or admit that the perspective that they have held is not completely accurate.

      So, who do you trust?  How can you identify them?  What is their character?  I think words like honor, integrity, honesty are totally applicable.  If the individual does not have integrity, honor or honesty, I would say you can’t trust that individual.  So, the bottom line is that you are for sure that you can trust you.  That is very powerful.  You can do more things than you think you can.  And, I believe that you can begin on your own, if someone comes along after you have started and you want their help, then that is your decision.  Your decision is what makes it happen.  Just as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and even Bill Gates, they had the ideas on their own and made the decisions on their own.  Just as every inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, astronaut, fill in the blank.  Without the original person it would not have happened.