We trust unreservedly. Why am I saying this? Some people say they find it hard to trust others, but that's a load of bull. For example, we trust that others will follow the rules of the road and not run us over when we cross the street. Or, every time we drink a glass of tap water, we are trusting that the government has agencies involved that ensure the safety of our drinking water. The same goes for bottled water. We are trusting in companies that label their water "spring water", and that there aren't any bio-organisms in the water that could harm us (or at least, we trust that the percentage of bio-organisms in the water is small enough to do as little harm as possible).
Therefore, we trust we trust we trust!!
But, do these people and organizations actually deserve our trust? I read an article about The Body Shop's founder, Anita Roddick, a couple of years ago, but never had a chance to share or comment about it before. The article is called The Myth of the Green Queen, and was written by Jon Entine. Even before I read the article, I already had inklings of something gone a-foul. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark. But Shakespeare lines and foreboding premonitions aside, why did I have these feelings/notions?
I'm a pretty conscious consumer (which is why it takes me a million years to shop for anything!!!). I read labels, and look at the general quality of goods. I guess this is a trait I got from my dad, who always taught me to (cue fatherly voice) "Go to the washroom of a restaurant before you order anything on the menu." Sounds strange, especially if you don't necessarily have to go, but it makes a lot more sense when you realize that a restaurant that keeps its public washroom clean has workers that care about hygiene (ie. the chance of you getting e. coli and general stomach problems after your meal is exponentially lessened).
Anyway, so when my sister bought me some Body Shop treats a couple of Christmases ago, I smelled the products (they were delicious!), and then I read the product labels. For a company touting itself as environmentally conscious, using natural products to enhance beauty, I kind of did a double-take on the amount of chemicals I didn't recognize on the label. So there's another lesson: try not to use products where there are more unrecognizable ingredients on the label than recognizable ones. I was young and naive then, so I used them anyway, despite thinking that the company was probably a bad tomato.
So what does this mean for the future? It might be a little naive, but I tend to trust until proven untrustworthy. I think it's a good way to operate. There's a lot of news that makes people, including me, cynical about the world, and about trusting our health, our sanity, to people and companies that have the bottom line as their prime motivation, but, as in all relationships, if we all started not trusting anyone or anything, it just makes things a lot harder for everyone. It's a good idea to take action against big corporations that lie and take advantage of people's hopes, but at the same time, I don't think it will make the world a better place to distrust everything either.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: we need to pick our battles wisely, and just keep a close eye on the things that we do, and the things that we buy/consume everyday. I also think it's a good idea to invest a little more in the things that we "trust" to be better for us, and to do a little more research.
