When you can't trust everyone's intentions...

Beyond Benefit of the Doubt

I have had to revisit this notion frequently over the last few months, when reflecting back on some of my dad’s and brother’s actions.

But also —when considering and reconsidering the actions of a few people that I used to be very close to and think very highly of.

I wrestle with this one—

Because I used to think that people who were always suspicious of others’ intentions were overly cynical, pessimistic and sad souls, unable to see the good in others, poisoned by the world, wanting so desperately to protect themselves from getting hurt that they always assumed the worst in people. I didn’t think it always malicious but they were trying to protect themselves and that it would not work. That they would get hurt anyway.

I thought that such attitudes and negative mindsets would affect their relationships and cloud how they see the world, making them less likely to see the beauty in it and the goodness in people. I used to think that, ultimately, it would only bring them down.

To a degree, I still see merits in that point.

However, now, after some pretty life-changing and eye-opening experiences, I now realize that you cannot and should not always trust people, not everyone, their intentions, their altruism, their goodness, even those whom you may have thought trustworthy.

That Anne Frank’s quote comes to mind: “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”

This was, of course, before she was found and brutally murdered by the Nazis during WWII.

I wish I did too, Anne. I am not so sure.

Many people, yes. But not universally. Not enough to label it as “people” without some sort of qualifier proceeding it or disclaimer thereafter.

I do believe a lot of people are amazingly selfless, compassionate, generous souls, many whom I am honored to call dear friends.

And yet, recently, I also have seen an awful lot of insecurity and shame masked through cruelty, deception and lies.

I have seen a lot of apologies that I have had to question their sincerity after I was made to see—through countless actions, inactions and overall behavior— that they were rooted in selfish gain.

And I see a lot of evasion of accountability through projection and deflection onto others.

Some of it, I have endured; at other points, I have witnessed in people I care very deeply about.

Now, undoubtedly, people are endlessly complex; we are all many shades of good and evil, at points.

That is true. And still—

The older I grow, the less willing I am to associate with those who have no interest in accountability, owning their own junk and seriously growing, especially when they have damaged others so.

I am not being embittered here, but blatantly and unapologetically honest.

I have no interest in seeing the world as all shades of dark and evil.

And yet, I also hold some trepidation through gained life experience that I did not before have and that I cannot, and will not, deny.

I think people—even or especially those we love and those we are related to—can be extremely self-serving, and while many of us come around with compassion and empathy, when we hurt someone, and that affects us deeply—

There are others for whom, I’ve come to realize, are unable or unwilling to do so, for extended periods of time, because their primary motive is themselves, always, only.

Whether this is willful arrogance, conceit and selfishness, or a learned trauma response, I am not sure, sometimes, probably both, but—

At the end of the day, the result is often the same. And I have to question whether the root of it matters.

The trickiest part about this is that—

Some people are really good at manipulation and apologies and playing the social etiquette well, of what they ought to say. When they ought to say it.

This makes it incredibly hard to ascertain their sincerity: if it’s for their own benefit or if it could really be, entirely, for the sake of the other.

After an accumulation of actions and behaviors, inactions and webs of lies, cheating, betrayal and deceit, usually surface some pretty clear cut signs about their genuine intentions.

Then, when caught red-handed in acts of selfishness and betrayal, how does the person respond? Any response? Crickets? None? No apology?

Or, the other extreme: Gaslighting? A desperate attempt to over up more lies to reveal others to be the liars. That their realities are the ones to be mistrusted…

I consider how I have tossed around the belief that “we see the world the way that we see and feel about ourselves.”

Again, while I think there may be some merit to that; there is power in where we direct our energies and what we choose to see—

But now, also, I believe that notion to be entirely oversimplified.

Especially for people who have recently been hurt, their world shattered, who are wounded and healing from deep wounds inflicted on them by others, those closest to them who they entirely trusted, only to be made the fool for it.

We gain wisdom through our life experiences, the more interactions we have with people and the more relationships that we have, the more and more people that we meet. We gain more data, and we cannot deny those, our lived, embodied experiences.

We take those lessons with us. Those memories. Those painful experiences.

I’m not advocating for a deep-rooted pessimism, a return to the biblical premise that we are all original sinners or inherently selfish and evil.

But I will certainly move forward with more caution, with more of a take-it-at-face value honesty, with serious consideration of what individuals do and say….how they are treating me and how I feel when I am around them.

Do I get good vibes from the person?

Do they cut me down because something in me, how I act, who I am, what I possess, brings out their own insecurities?

Do I feel better about myself when I am with them or only sometimes? Other times they make me feel like shit.

In future, I will pay more attention. I will honor my own intuition more.

I have learned that there are those for whom cutting down others serves a deficit within them.

I always knew this to be true. I paid attention to bullies in school and loathed their behavior and treatment of others.

And yet, what I failed to notice, and what I will pay attention to in the future, is this—

to also remember that people are more complex that entirely bad. And the more dangerous ones are those who are more insidious in their efforts, because they are not always consistent.

The ones where sometimes you feel good with them. They’re charming and it’s fun and then the next day or moment—

You’re cut down. They’re explosive. They manipulate. They work at lowering your self esteem, in a fucked up, sad, desperate desire to pull themselves up.

Because somehow they believe that they are pulling themselves up. In cutting you down, that they somehow appear in a better light.

What these poor unfortunate souls do not realize is that, while it may work, it can bring others down, it doesn’t raise them up. They are sinking through their mistreatment of others.

It doesn’t raise them up.

Instead, it takes away their own energy and focus in what they could have been doing to improve themselves.

And that’s just the crux of it, I believe:

I want to be a person and surround myself with people who are intent on improving themselves, and who are intent on supporting others in their journeys of doing so—

Not—when push comes to shove and on a wrong day or mood—they’ll tear you down because they’re feeling badly about themselves.

Quite frankly, I simply don’t understand these type of people. I am not above this ever, certainly, but as I grow older and I do it less. I am growing.

And I know that when I may have a thought or make a thoughtless comment here or there, mostly, after some reflection, I realize it is rooted in my own issues of insecurity and shame.

My shame is more inwardly focused; it is more often based on inward guilt, shame, blame. And there are others for whom capitalize on that.

Because it is their momentarily drug, their high, to feel better about themselves.

These type of people puzzle me. I feel sorry for them.

And yet—

I also full intend to steer clear of them.

In knowing they exist, I will pay greater attention and demand more from those I choose to be in relationship with, in the future.