Exercising the Trust Muscle

There once was a time we did not have cell phones. We just took off in our cars and drove places. We generally had trust that things would work out, and we would be okay. Things did not always work out, but that was the risk of living.

That kind of trust is gone from our culture, and the sad thing to me is children who grow up in this time of cell phones will never have the opportunity to develop trust. How can it possibly be bred in them when they are held on such short leashes? Trust is a muscle that must be exercised to develop. Without opportunities to develop it, how can that happen?

I have a cell phone. It's prepaid and expensive to use, so I use it sparingly. I like to have it around when I drive just in case. But there are occasions I like to try my hand at trust and drive without it. I know this is quite a scary leap into the unknown, but once in a while I like to go without a safety net just to see how things work out. It feels like the good old days. I don't do extreme sports, so this is one of the gutsy things I do to exercise the trust muscle.

In my life's experience I've grown the most when I've taken big leaps. I consider those leaps as rites of passage. I think for many of us they do arise. We are backed up against the wall and must leap. I did that when I moved back to the Palisades. It is not the actual experience itself that provides the growth but the letting go in the leap. And if you are lucky and land safely, a kind of trust develops, and the next leap becomes just a little easier.

Trust really is a vital quality to have. With it one rolls with the punches far easier. It makes one psychologically hearty. Trust is a tool like using a flashlight in the darkness. Even with the flashlight we do not know what might lie ahead, but the beam gives us some courage to carry on.

I don't know how it is that I have developed trust. It's certainly not a quality taught in my family. In the past when I used to step in to take control, a mess only became bigger. However, in recent years experience has been teaching me that when I know when to let things be, they work themselves out elegantly. Seeing this time and again has shown me that trust can be relied upon if given a chance.

I am concerned for our children and the rest of us who have either never developed trust or allowed our trust muscle to become flabby. In these uncertain times we do need the grounding trust offers. Without those flashlights of trust, we feel like we are wandering in complete darkness. It's scary.

In spite of that, I do trust. I trust that when many of us will need trust, it will be there for us--even for our children who presently may have little concept of it. I believe trust is the hallmark of where we need to go to tackle what is ahead. Again, we do not know what lies ahead of that flashlight beam, but--nevertheless, we are here and must cope the best we can. Let us flex that muscle of trust and be the flashlight beam for each other to inspire courage to forge ahead together, come what may.