"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." Those wise words come from Ernest Hemingway, one of my favorite writers when I was a kid.
What I liked about Hemingway was that he walked his talk. He fought for what he believed in. Many people talk about how things should be, but few go out of their way to fight for it, unless the fight is brought to them. Hemingway was different. He went to where the action was and fought for hid ideals. That's the way it seemed to me as a kid, anyway. Although Hemingway is known for a number of groundbreaking novels, my favorite works by him are his Nick Adams stories. In those, I found a kindred spirit, even if the stories were written more than fifty years before I was born. If you ever get a chance, I recommend those stories highly. To get back to the quote, I think it can be improved upon even further. "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody, is to first trust them with a little thing that takes some judgement." If they screw it up, then you know that they cannot be trusted with something meaningful. You see, anyone can be trusted with something minor. It's different though if they have to make some sort of judgement call. Not everybody makes wise decisions. Why wait to find out if someone can make a wise decision when the chips are down? Instead, ask them to make some sort of decision when the outcome really doesn't matter too much. If they do well, then it is likely they will at least try to make a good decision when the outcome is more important. On the flip side, if they can't make a good decision while nothing is at stake, then it's likely that they would not be able to when the chips are down either. Sometimes, we are all thrown into a situation where we need to trust someone we don't know to do the right thing. Most times we aren't. It is those times when we are not that my solution would be a superior choice. Remember, trust shouldn't just be given. It should be earned. I think everyone should be given the chance to earn your trust. You just don't need to make that first chance a life-altering situation.
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