Trusting people is as hard as choosing red or blue cable in a time bomb in holywood movies.

Because when we are choosing the wrong cable that will be a huge disaster. When we trust the wrong people, then it would a disaster. The disaster not only caused by the consequence which rose because of that betrayal but also because of the feeling for being a fool. I have learned about that thing in a hard way. From a white lie into a not very white lie. Because of that experience, somehow I prefer to put my guard on for 24 7, maybe be a little bit skeptics. In my opinion, people who are very trusting as being nave. But the funny thing is: deep in my heart, I know that I still want to trust. I dont like the feeling of not knowing whos got on my back. I know that trusting people are generally happier than suspicious, mistrustful types. Then, maybe I should learned more to depend a handy little inner mechanism that I called trust-o-meter. If my inner software is working well, it will be guiding me safely through lifes many hazards. Then, how could I improve my inner software? First, stop lying to myself. To differentiate between people who might save my life and those who might ruin it, we have to be reliable toward ourselves by stop lying with ourselves and we do this far less often than most people realize. For example, when I went to Bali a few years ago with my friends, we had to travelled from Denpasar to Lovina in the middle of the night so we could be in Lovina by the morning. We had to pass trough the winding road in the mountains which is very dangerous. The danger makes no car wanted to be the leader of the convoy. The tension was tense and I tried to loose the tense by asking the-most-worried on Put, are you scared? Hah? No, of course not Are you comfortable? Yes Of course So if you were alone in your bedroom, would you be sitting in the position you are in at this moment? The problem is that we arent conscious of our own discomfort, even though its obvious. We lie in clear daylight, believing that we are telling the truth even though we know that we are lying. Its very important to trust in our selves as Goethe said that As soon as you trust your self, then you will know how to live. Second, start to classified people by quantifying the trustworthiness of people in my life. Starts by thinking someone important to me and rate my trust in that person on a scale 1 to 5, from lowest to highest. Then evaluate the person by recalling my observation of his or her behavior. I had a friend, for example, her name is Mawar. In the past I used to rate her 5. Then after, I did a little observation towards her behavior, like is she usually show up on time? Yes, When Mawar said something is going to happen, does it usually happen? No. When I heard Mawar describing an event and then get more information about that event, does it usually match Mawars description? Hmmm. Not really. In fact sometimes I felt like she little bit hyperbolic. Then, I started to revise my rating from 5 into hmm maybe 3. Dont be so petty. Have I ever witnessed Mawar lying to someone or assuming I wil help deceive a third person? Hmm, yess. Does Mawar sometimes withhold information in order to make things go more smoothly or to avoid conflict? More than once. Then how much do you think I have to give her? I am not saying that I have ultimate power to judge others. But if I continue to trust someone whose behavior doesnt pass the 5 basic questions, then I will trust-o-meter may well be misaligned. Because the way we do anything is the way we do everything, right? Third, learning to trust everyone and everything. Lao Tzu said that The master trust people who are trustworthy and also who arent trustworthy. This is true trust. Inviting a crazy stranger to sleep in the childrens room or believing that every elected official is intelligent is not a true trust. Its another

version of denial. So what does it mean to trust people who arent trustworthy?. People who reliably do their best whose stories check out against our own observations can be trusted to stay relatively honest and stable. Remember, my friend which I was called Mawar? I think I can trust her. She can be trusted to lie or she can be trusted to backstab me. Since the friend who never supports me probably never will. At that time, I faced some tough choices as my trust-o-meter directs me away from familiar negative patterns into new behaviors. But it helps me to more accurately predict what will happen, I felt a new growing confidence. In short, in our life, we usually confuse to choose the blue cable or the red cable, starts to depend on our trust-o-meter. No matter how faulty our trust-o-meter, its never too late to debug the system. In order to debug the system, you may want to try this three steep. First, stop lying to your self second starts to classified people whos trustworthy and whos not, and third, start to learn the true trust. Yes, its a jungle out there, but its a jungle everywhere. Life, In fact, is just one big wilderness. So use your instrument, trust-o-meter, to negotiate it safely.