Recently, the coupons for my drinking-water cans ran out. I was not at home when the delivery man came with the new coupons, so he called me on the phone and told me that I could simply make the payment online and he would arrange for the coupons.
I agreed and sent the money through an online payment gateway. But for nearly 10 minutes, there was no confirmation from the company. Those ten minutes were enough for doubt to creep in. I called him, worried that perhaps something had gone wrong.
“Madam, please trust me. Don’t be afraid. You will get the message soon,” he said reassuringly.
Ten minutes later, the confirmation arrived.
I called him again – not because I needed anything from him, but because I felt I owed him an apology. I thanked him for his patience and for reminding me, in a small and unexpected way, of something I had forgotten: trust.
What troubled me afterwards was not the missing message, but my immediate suspicion. Why had my mind so quickly imagined that I might have been cheated? Why was distrust easier than trust?
Perhaps we have slowly become prisoners of a world that teaches us to be constantly vigilant. Every day we hear stories of fraud, deception, scams and people taking advantage of others. We are constantly warned to be careful, to protect ourselves, to question everyone and everything. Somewhere along the way, caution can slowly turn into suspicion, and suspicion into an inability to trust even ordinary acts of kindness and honesty.
The man on the other end of the phone had done nothing wrong. Yet, for those few minutes, I had made him carry the burden of my fear.
It was a small incident, hardly worth mentioning. And yet it left me wondering: in teaching ourselves to guard against being deceived, have we also forgotten how to trust?
Perhaps trust does not mean being naïve. Perhaps it simply means leaving a little room in our hearts for the possibility that the other person is being honest.
It was a small incident, but it reminded me that trust still has a place in our everyday lives.
Elizabeth
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