Welcome to the Wednesday Coffee Hour here at Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can talk about what’s going on in our worlds.
I was talking with a friend recently and she mentioned that she thinks that as she gets older she gets less and less trusting of others. She asserted that all people, in general, are not very trusting – especially when it involves complete strangers. She seemed to think that it’s a reasonable thing not to trust people you don’t know especially in situations where your safety or the safety of your loved ones is concerned.
I’ve been thinking about it ever since we talked and, although I do agree that it’s important to be careful about believing in anyone and everyone or having faith in whatever they tell you, I still think we “trust” a lot more than we might think we do.
Every time I go through a green light when I’m driving my car, I am trusting that the people at the cross streets are stopping at their red light. These are complete strangers and I really have no reason to believe in them, but I do. In an age when everyone seems to be completely distracted by their cell phone, it may not be a wise thing to expect people to obey traffic lights but we still do. (I find it interesting that I don’t give traffic lights a second thought even though I encounter people who do not seem to know how 4-way stop signs work all the time.)
There are a couple of people I know from work who describe themselves as germophobes. They are always going on and on about the lengths they go to keep from exposing themselves to germs. They don’t seem to trust their own immune systems or other people’s hygiene habits. What I find most interesting about people who profess to be germophobic is that these are usually people who eat out at restaurants (even fast food restaurants) ALL THE TIME. If you’re really that paranoid about catching something, it doesn’t make sense that you would trust someone else to prepare your meals.
I will be going on a short work-related trip tomorrow and will be gone overnight. That means a pet-sitter will be coming to my house for 4 visits to feed my dogs and cats and to spend a little time with them. The pet-sitting service I use is one I’ve been using for several years and they have never given me any reason not to trust them but this will be a complete stranger coming into my house while I’m gone. I wouldn’t be able to live my life if I couldn’t trust someone to take care of my animals when I can’t be home. I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be able to pursue their careers if they couldn’t trust someone to care for their kids during the workday.
I think, by far, the most trusting people in the world (or, at least, in the town I live in) have to be the people who ride their bikes during peak traffic. I give them a wide berth when I’m on the road because, frankly, the last thing I ever want to do is hit someone with my car. But I’ve seen so many people on bikes narrowly escape getting plowed down either because they weren’t paying attention or the driver of the car was being a jerk. There are a couple of guys who live on my street who ride their bikes to work regardless of the weather conditions. It’s not because they don’t own a car or because they couldn’t easily take the bus. These are hardcore bicyclists who ride their bikes for the exercise and not just to get somewhere. One winter night, on my way home from work, one of these guys was riding his bike a few feet in front of me. The road was really icy and dark and I slowed down even more as soon as I saw the guy on his bike ahead of me. It was fortunate that I was going so slow because, as he was going around a curve, his bike slid on the ice and he ended up falling to the ground and landing just a few feet in front of me. I had plenty of time to stop and wait for him to get back up but it was probably as unnerving an experience for me as it was for him. I had to admire how trusting this guy was, not just of me and my quick reflexes but also of my car and its braking system.
According to BlueJessamine, it's Booby Wednesday and time to remind you that self-exams save lives.