I’ve written before that I tend to trust more than mistrust when I first meet people. I’m sure that it came from growing up in a household where we trusted each other and respected each other. Trust came with love.

Of course, life always comes with lessons about trusting the wrong people. Frenemies. People who use you for their own purposes. People who just don’t care enough to care that they have destroyed your trust in them for whatever reason.

Some of these people have been people we have been in business with over the years. We had a venture capitalist try to bankrupt us so he could take a tax break. We’ve had people work for us who we thought were friends and co-workers only to find out we were wrong. It’s hurtful and it makes it hard to trust future employees when it happens. It is, unfortunately, part of owning a small business.

While those hurt, it is always the personal relationships that hurt more when trust is broken. You rely on them to be there for you only to find out you were just a temporary amusement or handy at the time. They disappear or you have to force them out because the relationship just isn’t healthy.

Those people make it easy to become the person who just doesn’t trust. Put up walls and just hide within.

I honestly have some days where I want to be that person. Go inside, pull up the drawbridge and don’t let anyone new inside. And, yes, I do that some days.

But, as much as it probably would save a lot of hurt feelings, it isn’t me. I can’t live being a person who is always waiting for the next person to break my trust. Because then I might miss the wonderful person who is waiting just behind and looking to be true. That would be a worse loss than the losses that I suffer from the people who don’t value my trust.

“Trusting you is my decision, proving me wrong is your choice.”

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I make the decision to trust unless there is a solid reason not to. It might be naive, but I prefer to think of it as open. And it is me.