Is Trust Dying?

Dear friends,
for days and days I wonder why we got to this point. What was the cause that allowed distrust to take over our emotions?
There are moments when I look at the world with disappointed eyes, it doesn't happen often, but when the fear that nothing will change happens comes knocking on my door.
I have always considered trust as an essential element to establish true, clear, constructive relationships, and when this is questioned, my certainties fall like a house of cards on an unstable table.

A few weeks ago, during a volunteer shift at the ticket office of the ice rink set up for the Christmas holidays in my country, where the green pass and consequently the vaccine were mandatory to access, I had to refuse the entrance to a gentleman without a green certificate. He did not argue and accepted the exclusion without protesting but, strangely, he remained near the ticket office to observe my work.
After about an hour, with the gentleman still vigilant over my work, a mother arrived with a child that she wanted to skate. She did not show me the green pass because she had forgotten her mobile phone at her home but she guaranteed that she had it and that she would have it checked for me at the end of her son's skating session. Her intention was to have her husband send it to the child's phone. The high turnout of people, however, made me forget the promise, and when returning the skates I did not ask my mother to view the boy's vaccination certificate. When she left, the attentive no-vax still present on the edge of the track, she began to insult me ​​with offensive phrases and with increasingly bright tones such as to attract the attention of dozens of children unaware of what happened. .
Her accusations against me were meant to underline the lightness of my attitude; for him it was absurd that I had trusted a mother's word and that, in doing so, I had voluntarily discriminated against him.
The unfortunate little theater, made up of insults and swear words, went on for about half an hour and my justifications and my willingness to tone down the discussion were of no use. The bitter accuser greeted me with an insulting epithet, the premise of a sentence that left me speechless: "Next time I'll tell you too that I forgot the green pass so I skate and I'll screw you!".

This little story that may seem silly, meaningless, or simply the daughter of a very stressful time for all of us, hides instead a very worrying truth, which is taking root in our souls like a weed and that requires careful consideration. Beyond the insults, bad words and verbal violence that was directed at me, the serious object of the discord is to be found in the word trust, which obviously has a different value in the life of each of us.
I keep saying that mistrust kills relationships and, even more, that only by trusting anyone you can get the truth in exchange, but obviously this is not the case for everyone.

But where are we going? Is there a way to stop this wave of distrust that makes us blind? Maybe yes, but we need to start from ourselves, from our actions which must first express trust, and even if sometimes we will receive disappointments we must not be discouraged and we must continue to believe in it, in front of everything and everyone, because only by trusting is it possible learn to love unconditionally.
We always start from 1 and, that one, it is always us.


Max Laudadio
NP February 2022