Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, we have gathered today to speak about overcoming adversity and coping with the storms of life. This is very deep theme, and I am sure that anyone has many stories based on the challenges and their overcoming. But today we will concentrate on the issue of overcoming. In this light, it is important to emphasize the postulate that all challenges are timely, and they are not accidental. God tests us in such way. You cannot realize the real value of your life if you have not compared it to something. God sends us trials so that we could understand the deepness of His goodwill and love. No one is alone until he has his faith. The Bible has such words: "God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart" (Chronicles 32:31 NKJ). So, you see that even in His withdrawal, God is always with us. Sending us trials and challenges, He wants to demonstrate us the real power we have inside, the real power he gave us. Often we fail to use it properly, because we don't know how strong we are. In order to help us see our values He assigned us to, He sends us trials. There is no sense in crying over the trouble - "the best way out is always through", as Robert Frost claimed. So, you should not concentrate on your problems, but rather on the way how to solve them. Look forward, because life is beautiful, and God created it for us. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" - these words of the famous philosopher demonstrate that we are the instruments in the hands of God. Remember, how many timesyou thought that this was the hardest thing you've ever done. Then you experience something even harder, and you understand that you became stronger. Now you can endure even more. This is the eternal process of human development. I have met a lot of people who overcame the storms of life with dignity and faith. they all admit, that these challenges made their lives brighter. They understood the real value of life - it is invaluable. And there is no sense in suffering - accept it and overcome. This is life. It does notconsist of dreams and happy days, but of alternation of days and nights - both happy and miserable. Thus, another sense of adversity comes to the foreground - it makes us closer to our destiny. Japanese proverb says, "Fall seven times, stand up eight" - and this eighth may be lucky chance which willbring you to your happiness. May be not, but then you'll have to believe, fightand stand up as much as it will be needed. Storms of life are transient, no matter how hard they are - some day you will definitely reach your desired peaceful shore.

Just listen to the words written in the Holy Bible: "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him" (JAMES 1:12-13, 16-17 NKJ). Temptation to yield - overcome it! Temptation to blame God, fate and everybody around you in all your troubles - overcome it! All your life is

the sequence of choices. When a person makes his choice in favor of faith - he wins! Overcoming adversities and demonstrating strong will and belief, a human will obtain the "crown" - for he has shown his love to God, by accepting all challenges as needed and coping with them with the name of God on the lips. And God loves us, helps us and support us, and this is the main truth a person should remember when fighting with difficulties in life. Don't be alone in your struggle, accept it and entrust to your God. For, as He told, "…When you pass through the waters I will be with you; when you pass through rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I Am the Lord…your Savior." (Isaiah 43:2, NIV). All our mundane difficulties may seem crucial and catastrophic to us, but in fact they are only the episodes in the history of the humanity. Each life is saint and important in the eyes of God, so don't thinyour faith and sacrifice are inessential. They mean a lot, especially when theyare heartfelt and sincere.

God bless you all!

speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech

Love is a complex perplexity that has been defined by countless people; yet, no one has ever been close in grasping its true nature. One may turn to his/her dictionary to look for the meaning; however, even the dictionary cannot define this exactly. We then ask, how will we know if we’re already in love if we, ourselves, cannot even identify it? It is an intricate question; indeed, we often confuse love with various feelings like lust and infatuation.

Back in our Elementary days, we had our own crushes and immediately thought that it was love; hence, the catchphrase “I am in love with you” and the ever-popular “love at first sight.” People carry the belief until they grow up. They are being blinded by this sad thing. What they don’t know is that it’snot love; in fact, it is called Infatuation. We know it’s infatuation since Infatuation is distinguished by a lack of trust, loyalty, commitment, and reciprocity; in addition, there is the presence of the obsessor and the apple ofthe eye, which of course may or may not be attainable.

For kids, there’s infatuation; however, for young adults and adults alike, thereis lust. Lust, also known as lechery, is an impure act that involves one’s desire of the “flesh” of another. Lust is prevalent in teenagers and adults alike. Whenever they see an attractive person, they feel infatuated and

afterward, think of unclean thoughts involving them and the concerned person. What is sad about this is that once their desires have been met, they grow tired and eventually leave their partners.

What really is love then? Is it safe to say that love is anything that doesn’t fallunder infatuation and lust? Love is definitely a deeper feeling; on the contrary, infatuation and lust are simply feelings that are too shallow. Love is simply too complex to be talked out; subsequently, many people still end up being perplexed by love. This makes love a very special feeling; uniquely, it gives one an experience that no other feeling could give and that includes lust and infatuation.

When everything is said and done, we can all say that love is indeed a wonderful feeling which can be talked about for a very long time.

A Short Speech on Love.

It is all too easy, when our deepest friendship is torn, to believe all the love has gone out of our lives. To have someone mean so much then mean nothing at all always threatens to tear us apart. Our hearts and heads tell us the same story of hate, lies that our lives have lost meaning, a tunnel vision that threatens to consume us.

When we are broken and sad, it's easy to forget the love in our lives. The lovethat is true never leaves us; the love of friends; the love of brothers; the love of sisters; the love of mothers; the love of fathers; the love of God. Yet in the midst of the gaping hole in our hearts tormenting us, it is no wonder that all these loves seem to shrink, to not save us from hate, hatred of ourselves and the world.

It's all too easy to dismiss broken love as the folly of the young. Failed love is something one must pick oneself up from with ease, lest they be considered weak by themselves or others.

Rather than seek blame, seek the comfort of love when it has forsaken you inone form. Bonds of friendship, of family, of loving Creator are not bonds

easily broken. However, when they are, find the ones in your life who love you and live in the comfort of being cared for. Find meaning in your loved ones; find peace in their arms; find love where it can be found, for it is scarce.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

Love and hate are one of the strongest opposites in our dichotomous thinking. Why then unhappy love often turns into deep hate and ruined relationships? A person in love loves everyone. This overwhelmingly positive feeling can change the world drastically. A person in hate becomes an enormous destructive force. It drives to an abyss of violence.

Have you ever experienced real light of love and real darkness of hate?

Love may be more powerful than hate because, as it was in the song, love can lead to hate, whereas hate never, even metaphorically, produces love. Love is more powerful because it gives birth to new positive challenges. Love changes a person, enriches the world, extends the horizons, enhances opportunities, brightens friendships, and deepens emotions. A person in love has a specific aura, a peculiar kind of energy that is given off, scattered in all directions, like the light of the myriads of stars, sliding through ages, celebrating Juliet, Laura, Natasha, Ophelia, Desdemona, all those love stories,powerful in their complexity of feelings and emotions, all about eternal love.

But love can go away. It simply disappears, vanishes. So powerful to disappear, or love never goes away. Love's components are intimacy, passion, and commitment, with all their variations. Consummate love that balances them all is rare. If Romeo and Juliet had lived longer, would they have loved each other with the same intimacy, passion, and commitment? I have doubts. Love is powerful because it can transform. It is, in fact, a transforming process of flexible relationships, in which intimacy remains stable.

Who ever lived to hate? Love is powerful because it drives, navigates, directs,and makes our existence meaningful. Hate invites loneliness, whereas love denies it. Hate ruins personality, whereas love builds ego identity. Hate results in acts of violence, whereas love leads to amazing acts of kindness. Hate destroys, whereas love creates. Hate is war, whereas love is peace. Hateis bad, whereas love is good. Hate is revenge, whereas love is construction.

Hate is meaningless, whereas love is meaningful. It is impossible "to love to hate". It is always "love" that gives birth to "love". That's why love is more powerful than hate, if you follow me.

Discover your powers. Discover love in yourselves. Be sure you're more powerful to love than to hate. Keep love inside, and all will be always fine.

Definition Essay: Trust

Out of all the things that we want from any relationship (be it with friends, family, boyfriends and girlfriends, or someone else) trust is perhaps the most vital. But despite the fact that it’s something that we all want, both in ourselves trusting others and others trusting us, it is one of the hardest things to define.

One of the most important aspects of trust is to being able to place confidence in another person. Often this comes down to being able to tell someone a secret of some kind and knowing that they won’t reveal it to another soul. This is important, especially with friends, because we all have things we need to talk about but that we might not want shared with everyone. On other occasions, although not being the best thing that any of us do, it can mean telling someone else’s secret to a third person and knowing that they will not give away that you broke someone else’s confidence.

The other main aspect of trust is knowing that a person will always tell you the truth and not hide anything. This is often the biggest problem with trust with lovers, when on person will be hiding things from the other. This often leads to the suspicious person snooping around in their partner’s things, reading their text messages and emails, and even following them if they suspect that they are lying about where they are going. Often this problem is caused by another break of trust: cheating.

Cheating is often the worst thing that people can do their partner, as the trustplaced in that person is on the understanding that they will not be with another person. However, it is often that lying that goes with cheating that is the biggest problem, and worse than the cheating itself. For example, many people are able to forgive their partners if the offence has been admitted to straight away and apologized sincerely for. However, if someone finds out another way that their partner has cheated, through another person or through their own investigations, it is often unforgivable.

Trust is also something that must also be placed with people you don’t know

all that well, or even people that you don’t know at all. For example, we have to trust teachers to be teaching us the right things and grading our work fairly. In terms of total strangers, we have to trust doctors to take care of us and give us the right medication or perform surgery well, and emergency services like the police and fire services to come to our aid if we need them. All in all, trust is a very important thing that we must be able to place in many different people.

What is Trust?

Trust is defined in the dictionary as believing in someone. However, it isnot that simple to understand. It goes into deeper meaning as we continue tolive, grow and experience different challenges in life. Trust is believing in someone with your heart, knowing that he/she will cherish it as a treasure inside him/her.

There are different kinds of trust and these are: trust in family, trust in someone special and trust in friends. Our trust in family is of big importance because we have lived with them from the day we were born until we mature.Most of our secrets during our childhood are known by our family and we have deep trust in them because they took care of us. We have grown attached to them so they are the first to know our secrets most of the time. They know when we are acting strange or disturbed because they have known us since our childhood. We let them know almost everything about us. They are the ones we go back to when we do not have anywhere to go. Another kind of trust is trust in someone special or trust in our true love. He/she is the one who knows everything about us. We tell him/her everythingthat we keep inside ourselves because we believe in him/her and we have commitment with him/her. Sometimes it just takes time before we confide in him/her our secrets and other personal issues but we will surely tell him/her when we have really committed ourselves with him/her. There are no secrets between you two if you truly love each other. This is just a part of your commitment to each other. Another kind of trust is trust in friends. We let our friends know about some of our secrets but we keep our darkest secrets and our secrets from the past from them. We do not trust them right away because there are times that others betray you. It is when you and your friend had spent a very long time with each other that you can trust each other more.

There have been instances wherein others have shown their trust in

me. During my second year in high school, it was the only time when I had many female friends because my section that time was very friendly. That was also the only time when many of my friends really trusted me. I had this friend who liked a guy who was also liked by her close friend. She told me that she was falling for the guy who likes her close friend and that her close friend likes the guy too. She did not like their friendship to be affected by her falling for the guy so she just kept it from her close friend. I was close to both of them and I told our friend whom she kept the secret from about it. That incident made my friend who was keeping the secret cry. I made her cry and Ido not know why I did such a bad thing that time. I was really sorry and the good thing is that their friendship did not break. My friend just forgot about what I did. Even though the issue was resolved already, my conscience kept killing me up until now. I learned a lot about trust because of that. I learned that trust is a hard thing to regain and you will need to go back to square onejust to build it up again.

Trust is really not easy to earn. It is not given to others but rather, it is earned. It is not something that is as simple as believing. Instead, it involves your believing in each other, knowing that you will not let each other down.

Therefore, trust is very important to us. Without it, people cannot live with each other in unity. Trust is a big factor in unity. It can only be explained fully by our hearts. There is something special inside us that allow us to trust and be trusted. People have a place in our hearts and that is why we trust them. It is also the same to them; we have a place in their hearts. It is like a magic in this world that every living thing possesses. It is betting our life just to express ourselves.

Reflection:

I decided to write a definition essay about trust because trust is a very important thing in relationships of people. I wrote this essay purely based on my experiences. It was quite hard to dig in the words that would best describe trust in a creative way. This essay made me remember my responsibilities as a friend and a member of a family. It also made me reflect on my mistakes and what I should do to make my relationship with others better. Trust has different meanings depending on people’s experiences. I hope that readers would learn from this essay.

When you give a speech, especially when you want to influence your audience, you must first win their trust.

Trust is a belief in or a reliance on a person’s competence, integrity, and benevolence.

Competence: People are able to do what they intend or promise to do. If we doubt people’s ability to carry through on their good intentions or to keep their promises, we won’t trust them.

Integrity: People consistently act in accord with ethical standards: they are honest, fair, and decent. It’s hard, if not impossible, to trust people who do bad things.

Benevolence: People are concerned about other people’s welfare. They may have their own agendas and goals, but they care about other people’s feelings, needs, and wellbeing. We distrust people — for good reason — who are only out for themselves.

Hard Truths about Building Trust

It would be nice to think that there are simple rules — dos and don’ts — for building trust. (Do tell the truth. Do be respectful. Do keep your promises. Don’t withhold information that people need and have the right to.) But the truth is more complex and challenging.

1. There’s No Quick and Easy Way to Build Trust.

We earn trust by showing people over and over again that they can rely on our competence, integrity, and benevolence. And we earn people’s trust, paradoxically, by trusting them.

2. Building Trust Is Not All Up to Us.

Sometimes people distrust us not because of what we do or say, but because

of their experiences, expectations, and temperaments. It’s only in our power to be worthy of trust. It’s up to the other person to choose to trust us or not.

3. Trust Puts Us at Risk.

When we trust others, we accept and believe in their words, actions, and decisions. And we may be wrong. To earn people’s trust, we let them know what we think and feel, what matters to us, what we want. And they may use it against us. If no risk is involved, trust is unnecessary.

Trust is not easily given, nor easily earned. That is, in part, what makes it so valuable.

There are things you can do when giving a speech — techniques you can employ — to build rapport with an audience. (Establishing rapport is one step in building trust with an audience.) But it’s more important (and effective) simply to be worthy of trust. Your competence, integrity, and benevolence willshow through in your words, in your voice, in your gestures. And that’s what matters, isn’t it?

7 REASONS THAT TRUST IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LOVE

1. We can only love someone we trust.

Love is built on trust. As rational individuals, we can only naturally love someone we already trust. Relationships that aren’t anchored in trust are not made to survive rocky trials.

2. Love only reflects our ability to trust others.

Our ability to selflessly give ourselves to others comes with a guarantee of

reciprocation. We trust in order to be trusted, but we love only with the hope of being loved back.

3. We use trust to control our emotions.

We are emotional beings who put more emphasis on the means than the end.We engage ourselves in meaningful relationships that we value. Hence, we use trust to gauge our relationship with others, and in the process, we figure out how much we are willing to give of ourselves to others.

4. We put a premium on trust as the building block of any relationship.

Trust precedes love. Every type of relationship is anchored on our ability to beopen and share ourselves with others.

5. Judgment is clouded by love but illuminated by trust.

We think that love can save us from emotional roller coasters. More often than not, we are blinded by what love has to offer—gaining the acceptance, admiration, and approval of others. What we fail to consider is the fact that sometimes, our judgment becomes flawed because there are times when love suppresses reason and we get trapped in its foolish play. Trust, on the other hand, routes us back to the reason we built the relationship—establishing a lifelong connection with that person.

6. Trust conquers all.

We always believe that love conquers all, but it is trust that pushes us to believe that we can and will conquer every obstacle. We can say that love is the overarching concept of overcoming whatever obstacle comes our way, but it is trust that holds everything together. It is the glue to every gap and difference.

7. Trust is what makes us love again.

At the end of it all, after we fall down, get back up, and head back on track, trust enables us to believe that deep inside, we are all hopeless romantics just trying to find our own better half among the seven billion little souls on Earth.

TRUST-----------------------------------------------------

Note: Many of us have a hard time trusting others. If we're children of parents

with addictive behaviors (alcoholics, gamblers, etc.) or if we've been betrayed

by a spouse or parent or sibling or other loved one, we find it very difficult

to trust others and to trust life. That situation will be covered on the "mistrust" page.

It honestly goes against my idealistic nature to put trust here as an obstacle to living life fully. After all, isn't trust something that we all should have? Doesn't the lack of trust lead to suspicion and cynicism? Don't we lose a great deal of our so-called innocence when we reject trust? Well, yes and no to all of those questions.

Trust is a wonderful ideal, but what concerns me is the tendency among many people to put too much trust in other people, or trust in the wrong people. Both actions lead to extremely negative results that can affect one's own self-esteem and perspective of life. Another damaging aspect of trust is how we feel about ourselves and our lives after our trust has been betrayed. This idea may fit better on a page called "betrayal," but betrayal is somethingthat others do to us, not something that we have control over. We have control over the level of trust we put in someone and over the way we react when that trust has been betrayed.

When we entrust too much to another person, we face several risks. First of all, we may become too dependent on that other person, and we may start to

feel a diminished sense of trust in ourselves. We've put such a huge part of our own burden on someone else that we may lose our own ability to deal with that burden. What happens if that other person leaves? What do we do then? We either have to pick up everything where it was left, or we have to shift our trust to someone else, who may or may not deserve to have it, which is a very stressful situation.

Entrusting too much to another person also puts a huge burden on that other person, and he or she may start to feel overwhelmed with the responsibility of another person's burdens. If that happens, it will become difficult for that person to continue to carry so much trust, and he or she may end up betraying or trust or rejecting it completely. In any case, as soon as our trust passes a certain level, it becomes a burden to someone else. Such a burden is very easy to reject or betray, especially as time wears on. We end up setting ourselves up for huge problems.

More importantly, though, as an obstacle to a happy life, putting our trust in the wrong people can be quite devastating. As an example, we recently werein the market for a new car. We checked out a few on-line car markets, and two days later got a phone call from a local dealer that had been notified an on-line market that we were interested in purchasing a car. We told the salesman that we wanted only to look, and he said fine, come on in. So we went.

Of course, not too many people trust car salespeople to begin with, but I hateblindly agreeing with stereotypes, and I wanted to trust him. But this guy proved that the stereotype is often an earned one. He did everything to buildtrust, giving us the keys and telling us to take our time, "proving" his trust in us. He asked about the family and tried to be real personal. Within an hour, though, he had a contract written up and wanted us to sign on the bottom line. We refused, and he told us that another salesperson had a customer who was interested in the same vehicle, and it might not be there in a couple of days. We left. Two weeks later, we drove by the lot in the new car we had bought elsewhere and saw the other car still there. We also found out later that he had overstated the amount of the trade-in allowance they had given,

virtually lying about the amounts. We ended up paying $80 a month less for the same car with someone who sat down with us, explained all the numbers and options, and allowed us to take our time.

If we had trusted the first man, we would have been stuck with payments that were far too high for us. We also would have been ripped off, and the car would have become something different to us, more of an overpriced problem than the reliable vehicle that we needed.

But that's a very typical example. What happens when we trust a best friend to keep a secret for us, and that best friend tells others what we didn't want them to tell? And if we trust someone to do something for us while we're on vacation, and that someone doesn't do what we asked? Or what about trusting someone to show up on time and have them get there an hour late, ruining an afternoon or evening, because now the place you wanted to go to is far too crowded to get into?

None of these are unrealistic situations, but in each case, we're the ones who now have to deal with unpleasant situations because we've entrusted something important to someone else. We face anger, resentment, frustration, and many other negative feelings simply because of another's actions. It's very hard not to take such problems personally, too, and once we do that, it's pretty much a given that we're going to be down or angry for a while.

So what do we do? Basically, there's only one workable response to someonewho's violated our trust: forgiveness. But we also have to take a lesson fromthe situation, and learn that we need to be very careful where we put our trust, for as soon as we put our trust in another, we set ourselves up for potential disappointment and harm. We have to trust, for if we don't, we become callous, cold, cynical individuals. But we have to trust the right people, and we have to entrust the right things to them. It's always our call, even though we later may want to shift the blame to the other person.

There is a lots of relationship in our life and in this world like - a relationship between husband and wife, friends, parents and children, classmates, workmates and even neighbors. A relationship is easy to make but it is so hard to make that relationship stronger and lasting. A long lasting relationship is very easy to establish if we put the spirit of trust and love in

our hearts.because love and trust is the requirement in a relationship to makeit lasting. When these two character leaves from our relation then that relation becomes weak. Relationship is the only thing on the basis of which the whole human being is lasting so if we think logically we can see that strong relationship gives born to a enjoyable living.among different types of relationship there are some specific relationship which should be strong and lasting to lead a better life.like we must hope to last the relationship within our family or with our spouse. We should treat this relationship seriously in order to build a lasting, happy, strong and enjoyable partnership.

The two characters- LOVE and TRUST

Firstly Love

love is nothing but the greatest gift in the whole world. We can not define love specific. But we the people misuse the word "love". We misinterpret love with possessiveness and jealousy.love is of different types. Each unique relationship has its own type of love. Like love in the relationship between husband and wife, friends, classmates family etc. any person loves to share the blessings with anyone whom the person choose to spend his lifetime with. Love connects with our hearts. Love is the feeling which can be felt when it comes or lost. For the reason of love we walk towards anyone. When we love anyone from the bottom of our heart we give everything of our self instead of asking. Love is also a bridge .like a bridge connects one side of a river with another side as love is a bridge of the hearts. We communicate with others to make a bridge between the differences of our personalities with our partner. We create a bond with our partner and as a result we become one instead of two. We accept all the thinking of our partner though we know that our personality is different from one another. There is only one word in the world which has no definition and explanation is the word "love".

Secondly Trust

Protecting the love is the trust as the second requirement of a lasting relationship. When we love anyone then we trust him or her. Trust is the implied value of a relationship. We choose to trust our partner only for this trust. Trust is that thing which is broken on time is broken forever. Sometimes we think that trust can be picked up again but it is not true. When we lose trust from anyone we can not gain trust about him easily.trust should be maintained by each side of a relationship. Rebuilding trust is the hardest work

in life. It can be compared with a glass. When a glass is broken it's pieces canbe picked up and can be joined again but the perfect glass can never be maidbecause the sign of broken pieces will alive. As trust is broken one time it canbe rebuild after a long run and hard work but the sing of breaking trust will alive forever so it should be kept in mind that the trust should never be broken at any cost.because trust is the value within our self, is the character related with ourselves.one must trust one's partner but it does not mean that one will be passive. One must show to his partner that his trust should be respected by the partner. Losing trust is the first step of losing love. Any person can not continue loving to ensure that his trust is safe. Because when we love anyone we give respect to him, we let him enjoy his freedom, let him enjoy his life, we give him everything.and for exchange that person should also give the respect to our trust.

Trust is both reason of love and result of love. To make a relationship strong and lasting both love and trust is necessary.we should make such relationshipwhere the freedom and happiness will exists.each and everyone wants such partner whom he can love and trust.so we must give importance to love and trust in our relationship and life.

trustttttttttttttttttttttttttt ttttttttttttttttttttttt------

Trust in each other gives strength and vitality to our relationships. It gives us inner happiness, which is priceless. It brings joy all around and life appears brighter and brighter. Its fragrance spreads far and wide. Trust keeps us in a positive mental framework. When you trust each other you feel self-confident.The feeling of believing others is electrifying. It not only provides sense of security but provides us new zeal to fight the vagaries of life. Trusting each other gives us a sense of deep bonding. It signifies that we are united to fightthe battles ahead.

Trust is a synonym for warmth in our relationships.

With so many advantages of trusting each other, how do we feel when germs of mistrust appear? Life appears to be devoid of colour and lacks spontaneity.We behave with each other mechanically like robots .We constantly live with fear and tensions. We live in our shells and we are unable to share with each

other. We live in suppressed condition, which inhibits the growth of our personality. As a result we are not able to contribute for the betterment of thesociety. We are unable to create a conducive atmosphere where there is transparency all around. A society whose foundation is built around trust is progressive and dynamic. Lack of trust signifies decay in the society.

Building up trust is not easy. A lot of conscious effort has to be made in this direction. We need to nurture our relationships with care. We should not let our ego destroy our relationships. This requires making constant efforts to know each other fully. The more we explore each other the more we can handle each others contradictions well. After all most of the problems in relationships occur because we do not want to open up. As a result we tend to look at others with doubt. We live in our own world of likes and dislikes, as we are not able to create a right balance. No doubt, people tend to view us with suspicion. If we are balanced and mature in our thoughts and action, people will trust us. For this we must shed the habit of finding fault with others even on a slight pretext. Instead we should identify and make others aware of their positive traits and strengths. This will enhance our credibility, which will lead to building trust. We must not indulge in unhealthy competition by trying to outwit each other. Instead we should master the art of rejoicing in the happiness of others. Good performance of others should spur us to act in a positive manner. Being jealous and competitive will be of no use as it will lead to destroying trust.

No one is perfect in todays era. If there would have been perfection all around then no trace of mistrust would have been present. We must build trust against the backdrop of limitations in our personalities. Mistrust is itself a reflection of our inadequacies and imperfections in handling our relationships with finesse. After all: reform begins at home. Let us reform ourselves by giving time to our relationships and thinking of ways to strengthen them. Trust will then follow naturally.

TRUST-----------------------

Earlier today, I googled the word “trust.” It was a sobering experience. I was more than 20 pages into the results before meeting a single instance of trust in the sense of belief in something or someone. There were all types of financial trusts, businesses with “trust” in their names, companies eager to help you set up personal trusts, charitable trusts of every kind—but nothing about putting your trust in anything or anyone. When I did find an entry

relating to trust in this common sense, it was about mistrust; a psychiatrist offering help for people whose trust had been abused through infidelity or fraud!

Trust is fundamental to life. If you cannot trust in anything, life becomes intolerable—a constant battle against paranoia and looming disaster. You can’t have relationships without trust, let alone good ones. Intimacy depends on it. I suspect more marriages are wrecked by lack of trust than by actual infidelity. The partner who can’t trust the other not to betray him or her will either drive them away or force them into some real or assumed act of faithlessness.

In the workplace too, trust is essential. An organization without trust will be full of backstabbing, fear and paranoid suspicion. If you work for a boss who doesn’t trust her people to do things right, you’ll have a miserable time of it. She’ll be checking up on you all the time, correcting “mistakes” and “oversights” and constantly reminding you to do this or that. Colleagues who don’t trust one another will need to spend more time watching their backs than doing any useful work. The office politics would make Machiavelli blush.

Organizations are always trying to cut costs. Think of all the additional tasks that are caused directly by lack of trust. Audit departments only exist because of it. Companies keep voluminous records because they don’t trust their suppliers, their contractors and their customers. Probably more than halfof all administrative work is only there because of a pervasive sense that “you can’t trust anyone these days.” If even a small part of such valueless work could be removed, the savings would run into millions of dollars.

All this extra work—plus the work we load onto ourselves because we don’t trust people either. The checking, following through, doing things ourselves because we don’t believe others will do them properly— or at all. If you took all that way, how much extra time would you suddenly find in your day? How much of your work pressure would disappear?

I’m constantly amazed when people claim to be overworked and under constant pressure, yet fail to do the one thing most likely to ease their burdens: trust other people more. They don’t delegate, because they don’t

trust people to do what they’ve been asked to do; so they have to take on every significant task themselves. They attend every meeting, however futile,because they don’t trust others not to talk about them behind their back, or reach decisions they don’t like. They demand copies of every memo, report and e-mail, because they don’t trust what might be said if they’re not watching. They’re constantly keyed-up and tense, watching for rivals or otherdepartments to launch some covert operation to undermine their position. It’snot the pressure of actual work that’s driving them towards some stress-related illness, it’s their lack of trust in anyone and anything. Is it any wonder they’re close to total burnout?

Someone has to begin the cycle of trust by an act of faith. It’s no use waiting for the other person to make the first move. They’re waiting for you. It takes a conscious act of unconditional belief in that other person’s good sense, ability, honesty or sense of commitment to set the ball rolling. Will your trust sometimes be misplaced? Of course. Life isn’t perfect and some people aren’ttrustworthy. But will increasing your willingness to trust produce, on balance, a positive benefit? Will it make your life more pleasant and less stressful? I believe so. You have little to lose by trying.

Trust has to start somewhere. Why not with you? Why not today? Why not right now?