Thoughts, Feelings and Mood - a blog by Ashutosh N. Matai

Lay down on a starry night, look up in the sky and ponder over the topic of trust. Ask all the questions you can and maybe, just maybe, you'll find the right questions. What is trust? Trust is an elusive mistress that sneaks into your life when you're vulnerable, whispers into your ear assurances based on fallacies and asks you to believe in her when you really ought to put as much distance between her and yourself as you can. Trust is the eye-catching, gallant and virile man who runs his fingers across your arms and around your neck, pulls you closer and despite the heightened sense of glee, puts you at ease. Trust leeches onto you and takes away all your secrets, lays bare your weaknesses, open to exploitation and defenceless. Whom should you trust? That's the billion-dollar question, isn't it? Whom should you trust? Your friends? The people you work with? Your family? Or perhaps someone who whole-heartedly love? I say you ought to trust everyone - trust ...

The biggest boon to our species is arguably the use of language and the availability of over a hundred thousand words in our languages to give our thoughts shape and communicate effectively. And therein lies the problem. Despite this huge boon, most of us seem to be unable to communicate properly. That's fine, but it leads to people interpreting things differently. I, for one, prefer straight, direct communication above all. I do not tolerate half-truths and lies and I find it extremely difficult myself to lie. Therefore, I simply choose a course of action and stick to it. Now, keep in mind that in such situations, you never know what the right course of action is. You can only guess at what the right thing to do would be, but do not, I repeat, absolutely do not compromise on your standards or expectations. Do not let your ego take a hit, remind yourself that any honest person deserves the same kind of honesty back in return. After all, do onto others as you would have done ont...