2040's Ideas and Innovations Newsletter, Issue 42: How Do We Trust?

Issue 42: February 10, 2022

Everyone is talking about who or what to trust, particularly in today’s fractious public discourse. When we decide to trust, we have aligned with and formed an understanding, correlation, and interpretation of the meaning of that trust. We then apply what has been communicated, shared, and internalized to our own beliefs, values, and knowledge … and take actions based on that trust.

In Ourselves We Trust

Where do we end up if we have formed thoughts, knowledge, beliefs and take actions only to discover our trust was misaligned? We feel violated, we question ourselves and second guess how we could have trusted in the first place. What did we do wrong in our evaluation and assessment of the trust we aligned with to another, an organization, or even a government?

It gets more complicated. If we don’t trust ourselves, we typically don’t trust others. You can also flip the equation and by trusting others we can trust ourselves. This bi-directional connection aids us…