Easily shattered yet mended with great difficulty. Occasionally given easily but mostly given with proven effort. The embodiment of reliance on or confidence in another. An entrustment of your emotional well-being with another. A belief that what they do will be in your best interest. It exists in asymmetrical existence where it can take years to earn it but only moments to shatter it.

Psychologist Erik Erikson believes the notion of trust or mistrust occurs during our first 18 months of existence. If we are exposed to warmth, regularity and dependable affection by our parents, then we will have a trusting view of the world. If our parents fail to provide a secure environment and meet our basic needs then a sense of mistrust results. Given this theory, if we begin our life raised in a way to garner a trusting view of the world, can this view later be tarnished by experiences we encounter as we age?

If we are betrayed by one we have placed our trust in does this forever tarnish our trusting view of the world? Does it lead us to only then view the world with mistrusting skepticism or is our view only slightly skewed? Can we still trust but perhaps not as wholly as before?

Dr. Riki Robbins, Ph.D., believes that if our parents behave with integrity, tell us the truth and keep their promises then we are inclined to believe that others will do the same. Yet is it better to begin with a less utopian version of trust. Perhaps one that is not so absolute. If your parents act in a manner that leads you to never question trusting another how much does it damage your ability to trust the first time someone betrays it?

Whom can you trust? Everyone, anyone, no one? How many do you want to open up your vulnerabilities to and to what extent? Can you ever really be certain of someone working towards your best interests and not their own personal agenda?