Truth and Trust

No. 7 - 25th September 2016

I don’t know about you, but I get an awful lot of bogus phone calls and emails these days. A so-called firm of solicitors will ring up to say they understand I or someone in my family has been involved in an accident and they may be able to help me with the claim. No. No one in my family has had an accident. The other one is Windows Technical Department saying they have noticed a serious problem with my computer and they need to link up with it in order to fix the problem. No. There’s nothing wrong with my computer. It’s a lie. All lies. They’re all trying to get hold of my personal details or introduce a problem into my computer so that I will have to pay them to fix it. I seem to get several of these phone calls and emails every day.

It’s not just the irritation of having to deal with them, the real problem is that now I don’t know who to trust. Any stranger who contacts me for whatever reason, is now treated with suspicion and wariness. I think that’s awful. I really don’t want to be like that. Someone recently tweeted this message. “It’s not the fact that you lied to me that hurts so much. It’s the fact that I can’t trust you any more”.

Truth is so important. Truth, honesty and integrity are all vital for holding a community together or even society at large. Without them, all kinds of relationships start to break down: From Parliament, right down through big business, banking and commerce. They all depend on being able to trust the other person you’re dealing with. We can even bring it down to our neighbours and members of our own family. If you can’t trust them, there is no real relationship. Everything depends on truth, and without it, the whole fabric of our society begins to crumble. Unfortunately, it’s already started to happen. Now, I can’t do anything about our politicians or big business, but what I can do, is to make sure that my little world is based on truth. To make sure that my ‘yes’ means ‘yes,’ and my ‘no’ means ‘no’. That I don’t lie my way out of an embarrassing situation, but rather, tell the truth and face up to the consequences. That’s what will hold our community together. Truth is the glue that keeps every relationship going. Our world would be a much better place if we could achieve that in our own individual lives. The motto has to be, to “treat other people the way I would like them to treat me”.