Practicing Trust
March 6, 2017 6:21 PM Subscribe
I've been practicing trust. Thinking about it. Below is a dialog I had with myself about it. I'm talking of trust without any religious context, i.e. not about trusting in a god.
Can you recommend books to read on the subject?
Do you have any insight yourself?
FD
So I’m thinking about Trust.
TRUST
Yes.
FD
And I'm stuck.
TRUST
What is the issue?
FD
I've been practicing trust. Part of my meditation is:
Breathe in Trust. Breathe out Fear.
Breathe in Trust. Breathe out Worry.
TRUST
I can see how that would be beneficial.
FD
It is, no doubt. It helps in a general sense and also in specific cases. If I find myself stressing out about something, worrying about something, I can recall the meditation and I am able to a great degree to let go of the worry.
TRUST
Great. So what's the problem?
FD
If I think about trust on a grander scale, this meditation would fail, has failed, many times in the past.
TRUST
I have some idea where you're headed with this. I'd first like to point out that you can't be naïve about Trust. For example, if you want to be a professional basketball player, you can't just trust that it will happen. You have to practice, workout and eat healthy for there to be even a chance that this will happen. Second, there are the realities of the world. If you are 5 feet tall, it is very unlikely you will ever be a professional ballplayer no matter how much you practice.
FD
I get that. I am thinking of other cases like Jews in a Nazi prison camp. They could've said to themselves, to each other, "Just trust that things will work out". On the one hand you could say that Reality trumps Trust in this case. On the other, they were not there voluntarily. Things were not in their control. I think that the practice of trust often arises when you feel that things are not in your control. You practice to trust that things will work out. Well, it didn’t work out for them. And certainly it is easy to come up with more examples of things working out. And no, not all people would have been practicing trust, but some probably were.
One question that arises is: What does it mean to say that things will work out? This could be debated at length. I feel certain, though, that dying of starvation in a prison camp cannot be seen as things working out. The reality is that things are not going to workout for a lot of people whether they practice trust or not.
FD
So I’m thinking about Trust.
TRUST
Yes.
FD
And I'm stuck.
TRUST
What is the issue?
FD
I've been practicing trust. Part of my meditation is:
Breathe in Trust. Breathe out Fear.
Breathe in Trust. Breathe out Worry.
TRUST
I can see how that would be beneficial.
FD
It is, no doubt. It helps in a general sense and also in specific cases. If I find myself stressing out about something, worrying about something, I can recall the meditation and I am able to a great degree to let go of the worry.
TRUST
Great. So what's the problem?
FD
If I think about trust on a grander scale, this meditation would fail, has failed, many times in the past.
TRUST
I have some idea where you're headed with this. I'd first like to point out that you can't be naïve about Trust. For example, if you want to be a professional basketball player, you can't just trust that it will happen. You have to practice, workout and eat healthy for there to be even a chance that this will happen. Second, there are the realities of the world. If you are 5 feet tall, it is very unlikely you will ever be a professional ballplayer no matter how much you practice.
FD
I get that. I am thinking of other cases like Jews in a Nazi prison camp. They could've said to themselves, to each other, "Just trust that things will work out". On the one hand you could say that Reality trumps Trust in this case. On the other, they were not there voluntarily. Things were not in their control. I think that the practice of trust often arises when you feel that things are not in your control. You practice to trust that things will work out. Well, it didn’t work out for them. And certainly it is easy to come up with more examples of things working out. And no, not all people would have been practicing trust, but some probably were.
One question that arises is: What does it mean to say that things will work out? This could be debated at length. I feel certain, though, that dying of starvation in a prison camp cannot be seen as things working out. The reality is that things are not going to workout for a lot of people whether they practice trust or not.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry, this is chatfilter. -- LobsterMitten
« Older US citizenship application and political activism | Less evil data scientist jobs in Seattle? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.