The fallacy of trust

For some people entering unknown territory is very scary, we don’t know what to expect and are worried what the other parties may think or do. Some are bothered but take the risk anyway because we put on a brave front, and then there are those that go all out opening new doors and letting ourselves into new situations without a care. But how safe is it to not worry? Is it sensible to forget everything our mothers taught us? But they did tell us only to cross the road with the walk sign and yet how many of us do? Taking a little risk can pay off big sometimes, but sometimes can leave us penniless with a little pain a lot less dignity. Recently I found myself lost in a place I thought was home. We have to wonder when is our trust ever wisely invested?

It seems that when we go seeking things that are fake it is only fair that we stumble across fake people. But when we go looking for this, we become false to ourselves. We invest a lot of trust in the people that are helping us, but in the end the money means more to them than your trust. We have to realise when it is sensible to put our trust on the table when the opposite player holds the upper hand. In the safest environments we can be tricked into losing everything we have, because we are lured into a false sense of security. What we don’t realise is that fake people are surrounded by more fake people whom all are in the same game, and so even the safest environments are never secure.

There comes a time when we question our beliefs, we wonder who to put our trust in; ourselves, or others who have our best interests at heart. Sometimes though we don’t know what is best for ourselves because we don’t feel that close to anything in particular. We have no preference so we have no idea. Sometimes we are just worried about what others will think, and are more concerned for their thoughts than for our own. But we have to look inside ourselves, listen to ourselves and know exactly who we are. If we do we’ll find our security and then we can place our trust, unforgivingly, in all the right places.

But who are these other people to judge us, they make choices just like us; they make decisions like we do. They make bad ones as well, but we don’t hold them to it, so why do they us? They may say things about us, to our face or not, we hear them but we shouldn’t let it bother us too much. After all we are our own person, we know what we are and even if they are right it is completely our choice to live a lie if we have too. And if we do then what they say can be nothing more than rumours.

We find comfort sometimes from small things, familiar faces, familiar places and voices, and sometimes just being told that a friend enjoys your company can mean so much. It means that you hold a special place in someone’s life, that you do have meaning, purpose and presence. Not everyone has that. We all have our issues and problems and some let them get to us. But we shouldn’t because life is just a continuation of problems, one after the other, small ones, and big ones. Ones that have lasting effects. We don’t know what magic tomorrow will bring, we don’t know if dreams will be reached or whether more setbacks will be caused, but at this time of year we have more hope than ever. All the movies prove that dreams do come true, even if it is all a bit Disney.

Love yourself, love your friends and listen to who you are not what other people want you to be. Be the person you always dreamed of being. Take a chance, drop a line, prove people wrong. Trust yourself. But there is one rule our mothers gave us we must never forget, never trust a stranger. Because like the roads, they’re all different and in one swift move we can lose it all.

Merry Christmas.

2008… 09... 10 … 11

We have to sometimes sadly accept that we cannot default time. We cannot speed it up, slow it down, or stop it. We cannot travel through it; we are ultimately all victims of time. Whether its the trains and planes that don’t wait for us, the queuing at Christmas or just the need to stop, take a break, and breathe. Time marches onwards and we have to make the most of every second. Sometimes though we can inadvertently waste time, we can skip a class and end up missing a year, we can miss a train and end up ruining a Christmas, or we can find something out early that makes the clock more real than ever. Ultimately we are not servants of a God, or a King, or a President. Because even they are servants of that great mystery, that law that we cannot help but abide by; a law unto itself. Time. But we have to wonder can we make up for lost time and end up where we should be?

When you realise finally that your clock is ticking, and you hear it louder than ever, there are mixed emotions. A part of you regrets that which has been and gone and which could have changed everything, there is a part that looks forward to every day from here until ‘that day.’ But the most promising of times is the time you realise that time is happening. There isn’t a moment to spare. People are always assuming they will be forever; they will remain and see their children grow, marry and have children of their own. But life isn’t always straightforward there are unforeseen complications, bends in the road that we never saw. But how is it that we overcome these, and what if its too late to turn back?

If we miss such a monumental amount of time, like a year, and waste it can we ever get it back? Can we possibly make up a whole year? And why did it take us a year to realise that that was wasted? Sometimes we are so busy watching the destination that we don’t realise we enter a dead end. The roads of London are tricky, hard to remember, not in any order and full of restrictions, humps, legislation, charges, and endless signage. And like the roads of London, the roads of life represent similar qualities and if you’re not watching your back all the time then you could miss something and end up with a problem in the post. We can appeal, but most of us don’t. Even if we do though, we can’t always win, despite the stories we make, the lies we make up and make up we hide behind.

Missing out isn’t always the worst option, if you make the most of what you’ve got. After all, we only realise time if we have a deadline, and if we have a year to do as we please then the deadline disappears and the year becomes the break, the slow down. And if we’ve been 100 mph for the past 15 years isn’t about time we stopped for a moment. After all, if we leave temporarily and realise we made a wrong move, we can always return. Because we make the life we live and we still have choices. We can return, there may be new people to get to know, new places that have risen, new friendships formed and old ones broken. We may get a new address, a new telephone number, but even with all this change, with all these differences, time is still going, just as slow, and just as fast as it was before.

So can we can make up for lost time? No. Lost time stays lost but every second is still ticking, new problems are arising, old problems may crop up again. But it still keeps ticking. We continue on our path, we follow our souls and our dreams. But time keeps ticking. We speed up our reality, but seconds stay the same. Priorities change, as do we. And time goes on ticking. You see, if we can keep the eye on the road ahead then we may realise soon enough the problems coming, and solve them efficiently. But if we have to turn back, then take one thing, experience, and learn the lesson and then the time would not be lost. Because despite the delay that’s not to say that our plane won’t make it all the way. But make the most of the journey back because time… is still ticking.