Here's a tip for all you honest people, who agonize over who to believe and who not to trust. This is what I do: trust EVERYBODY. Believe that everything anyone tells you is their best and honest truth. Just don't give anybody any money.
This totally frees you up! You can believe in everyone, without restriction, and boy does it feel so good. Anybody can tell you anything, and you can just feel the freedom and release of assuming that they are being honest. That assumption doesn't require any action or investment on your part! I believe everyone, and it never costs me anything just to believe people - because I don't give people money whether they're honest or not.
Does this attitude seem ungenerous? Stingy, perhaps? Well let's think it through. What are my obligations? Does the fact that a person is being honest create an obligation in me to pay them? Just because somebody's being honest, does that mean okay, I need to give them five hundred dollars for that? I mean, shit. Ordinary basic honesty is a bare minimum requirement, isn't it? It doesn't mean a fat cash payout.
I'm not a miser or anything. Any of my ex-girlfriends will tell you I'm the most generous person I know - primarily because I could really care less about money. But I have priorities. I'm kind of old-fashioned like that. I believe that my obligations are first: to those to whom I am bound by ties of love or family. I have to provide for that, first, last, and always. When there's not enough to go around, when I know I'm behind where I need to be, just to meet those existing commitments, well shit - there can be no question of diverting surplus funds; there is no surplus. I don't take from blood, or take from love, to give to some person just because they have an absolutely, perfectly, truthful and moving sob story. I swallow it whole, mind you! I absolutely believe they are being truthful. I always have. But if it's not extra and above what I already know my kith and kin need, then that money's not mine to give. It is allocated.
If I were a tycoon I'm sure I'd be a pretty soft touch. I hope to get there, someday. It'd be nice to be a soft touch! I also have some crazy investment schemes I'd love to sink some funds into. But in the meantime, I have to put first things first.
People get all wrapped up in being taken advantage of, and they whine about not knowing who to trust. I find this one simple rule takes care of all that moaning and hand-wringing. And next thing you know: you are free to trust the world! To be a blithely trusting pollyanna.
Like me!
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