“A turtle was happily swimming along a river when a scorpion hailed it from the shore. “Dear friend turtle!” called the scorpion. “Please let me climb upon your back and swim me to the other side of the river!” “No,” replied the turtle, “for if I do, you shall sting me, and I shall die.” “Nonsense!” replied the scorpion. “If I kill you in the middle of the river, you shall sink, and I shall drown and die with you.”
The turtle thought this over, and saw the truth of the scorpion’s statement. He let it upon his back and began swimming towards the other side of the river. Halfway across, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. “Why have you stung me?!” cried the turtle as his body began to stiffen. “Now you shall die as well!”
“Because it is in my nature,” replied the scorpion as the turtle sank beneath the waters.”
It’s funny… by my nature or my nurture (God knows which) i am not a very trusting person.
but, i have been burned and surprised by people… and i have come to really look at the notion of trust from an accountable point of view. i’m operating under the premise that as humans we have a requirement to engage in relationships of one degree or another. those relationships can be between me and persons, organizations, governments, etc. and in those relationships there exists a certain amount of “trust”.
i have come to trust people to be who they are.
said more specifically, i trust people to be who they have behaved themselves to be… Dr. Henry Cloud calls this our “wake” - the “path” that a boat leaves in the water as it is moving.
this puts me in a position to be accountable if trust is violated. if my trust is violated, it is because i misread, misunderstood, or chose not to pay attention to what that person / organization / government was doing vs. what they were saying. unfortunately, the latter - that i chose to believe the words vs. the actions… that i chose to ignore the obvious is usually what happens. these are the instances where i will at first feel lied to… then angry or cheated or mistreated… and then i realize i had ignored what i had previously experienced.
my choice to ignore what i knew, to set them up on a pedastal that they didnt know i had put them on and then holding them to a standard they werent prepared to meet… then being idignant when they failed…
it’s like the bailout of the U.S. auto industry - it has been leaking cash for years, losing ground, that structure could not continue - and now they need a bailout because of the economic crisis? please… the U.S. auto industry has been failing because of the choices it has made.
or the bankruptcy of the Chicago Tribune - i’m sorry but how is the bankruptcy of a newspaper a surprise? “that crazy internet thingy… who knew it wasnt just a fad?”… classic…
or the business partner i had…
it is about grounding ourselves in the reality that people / organizations / governments will be who they are…
their wake is not just their past but more than likely their future…
as we behave in one relationship, we typically behave in ALL relationships…
it is then asking myself the question: what am i pretending not to know... and then owning and being accountable for the result.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Classic DMac….a window into this guy’s brain will benefit many…and apparently him as well.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I have learned to trust God & love people.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Right on DAVE!
This is also like what I try to tell my friends who date creeps! If it “walks like a duck, talks like a duck”…you can’t be mad when you find out “it’s a duck!”
My dad can give you his insight from the auto industry view too. My uncle, the Chevy dealer, wanted to build a 3rd dealership in Bakersfield for Hummer/Cadillac. They were a top sales dealership in CA for yrs and he wanted “more” My dad opposed it, and they built it anyways. It failed and they paid out over $100K a month in contracts even though they had to close the dealership. Nobody wants a Hummer with high gas prices-weird. Then they made him fire his best salesmen to counter the costs. Then my dad had enough and retired eraly, and is now repping his former salesmen against my uncle trying to rip them out of their bonuses. My pop new he was a bottom-line creep years ago, and there seems to be a lot of that coming out lately. Gross!
Sorry–had to share!