Who Holds Your Spare Key? A Conversation About Trust

Well, you know, a little story in an article that I wrote about trust and keys is really simply the fact that I think everybody on the planet has a spare key to their home.

Because, you know, what happens, we leave our keys inside and then it's like, oh, my gosh.

And we don't really want to pay a locksmith.

So typically we have a spare key, at least one.

And most people will hide it outside their front doors if they're so lucky to have their own home.

And other people may actually give it to somebody.

Now, either way, do you trust that key is going to stay where you put it and or do you really trust the person you've given it to, to hold on to it, keep it safe? and not abuse the privilege of it.

And, you know, besides that, it also brings into play the fact that at the end of my article, the question is, maybe we really need to ask if we are trustworthy as the owner of the key, because it can backfire on the person you give it to if you're not trustworthy.

So, you know, questions like that always come up.

It

does.

And it relates not to even a physical key, but it relates also, I think, to, you know, our emotional intellectual well-being.

I mean, if we're trusting somebody to either engage with us in conversation or to participate in a business endeavor or a personal endeavor? You know, are we trusting that the people are going to be there to support us and not hurt us? And I think that that kind of comes back in with that.

Who are we handing our keys to either figuratively or literally?

Metaphorically.

And I also think it also comes down to the fact, Julian, in that respect as to the integrity of the individuals involved and the motivation or the agendas of the individuals involved.

Yeah.

I mean, how many times have people answered a job advert just to be ghosted or have answered a job advert, got the job, and then on their first day realized it wasn't the job they applied for? Yep.

that kind of thing.

Integrity is part of this, isn't it? The

two-way street, yeah, absolutely.

So Joanne, what do you think?

Integrity is difficult to maintain for probably virtually every person on the planet.

We all have to make a decision.

I think there are some Stoics or other people who have just so much internal discipline that they never get into a place where they're not trustworthy about whatever it is, whether it's meeting up or making sure that no one dies.