Trust

Today, I watched Raya and the Last Dragon, in which the main character, Raya, struggles to trust others. Meanwhile, the other titular character, the last dragon, Sisu, has the opposite problem, being far too trusting. By the end of the movie, Raya learns to trust others, with the movie apparently presenting the argument that we should trust each other. Yet the fact remains that there were at least a handful of characters in the movie that have proven themselves to be unworthy of trust.

As usual, I think that the best course of action lies somewhere in the middle. Raya was wrong to never trust anyone, and Sisu was wrong to always trust everyone. We should trust those who prove themselves to be worthy of trust, and we should be cautious with strangers and with those who have proven to be untrustworthy. Granted, we should sometimes give other people a chance, maybe even a second (or third) chance, even if we don't know we can fully trust them, but we should still be cautious about how much trust we invest in those who haven't proven to be trustworthy.

There are a handful of people I know that I trust completely, and there is one individual in my life that I don't trust hardly at all (I don't want to name names, but rest assured, she isn't human, in case you were worried that the one individual was you). For just about everyone else, I give a measured amount of trust.

I think it's wise to trust a handful of people, because most of us know a handful of people who are worthy of trust, but I also think it's wise to be cautious with most people, including strangers. For the most part, trust should be reserved for those who have proven worthy of it.