Who can we trust? The average person would answer this question without much thought. They would say they can trust their family and friends. But, other than blood, or being around them, how do you truly know that they have YOUR best interest at heart. Everyone is living their own life. Why would they want to put someone else’s life above theirs? What if you both win the lottery but instead of sharing, they run off with the money? I mean if we are being honest with ourselves, we all know someone, who we call our “friend,” that might do something like that to us. Deep down, everyone is selfish. Why wouldn’t we be?  We go around life seeking attention and love from others to make ourselves happy.

In the famous Shakesperian story of Othello, one of the main characters, Iago, uses his impeccable lying and deceit to get his ways. However he didn’t just tell one lie and get away with everything. It started a while back. Iago became best friends with every character in the story. He manipulated the characters to like him, and they TRULY believed that Iago had THEIR best interest at heart. However they couldn’t be more wrong. When surrounding characters confided in Iago, Iago used this as bait. He would spin their feelings around and get them all amped up. Iago would use their desperation to manipulate them into losing their own moral compass. They would let their emotions overpower them. In Act 1, Scene 2, once Roderigo had left Iago, Iago began talking to himself and said, “But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor”. Even though Iago had just spent the whole day convincing Roderigo that he’s helping him and they are best friends. Iago even admits to using/ manipulating Roderigo for fun. Whether it was for sabotage, money, or in general for his benefit by making himself look like a trusted character. How do we know that the people around us won’t do the same to us? 

Discrimination is and has always been something that our society views. The world as a whole doesn’t trust us. Lupe Fiasco wrote a song about discrimination with race and called it Shoes. Lupe mixed quotes from Virgil Abloh who is a shoe maker but was referencing white and black culture and how black people can’t trust white people. Whether we are a certain race or gender, the world looks at us differently. So if the world as a whole doesn’t trust us, then deep down do we trust the world? Trust goes two ways. I mean the world is scary. Ever since I was little I was raised differently from my brother who is a year older than me. EVERY girl has these same teachings in their life: always be on guard; check surroundings; go with a group; never walk alone at night; and many more. We are taught these things to protect us from the bad people in this world. Since girls are weaker than boys we need to be on extra alert if a man (who’s obviously bigger than us) takes advantage of us. We will never be able to trust the world. There are too many opportunities for the world to take advantage of gender differences, race difference, and any other way that makes us different.

Ok, so we can’t trust the people around us, nor the world as a whole, do we even know if we can trust ourselves? The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a phenomenon that explains this concept: If you believe you are good at knowing 100% of something, you wont know if you are wrong. Otherwise known as “our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence” as shown in a New York Times article about the Dunning Kruger effect. This makes sense doesn’t it? If you think you know all of something, why would you think that your wrong? How can we trust ourselves to get us through scenarios if we actually don’t know everything that we think.  “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” – Mattman. Mathew Perry is someone who recently I started following. I just finished watching the well-known and infamous TV show, Friends, where Mathew Perry stars in his role of Chandler Bing. I LOVE the show and the cast. I was very sad when I finished the series a month ago. I even got all Friends merchandise for my birthday because my family knew how much I loved to watch Friends. The cast felt like my actual Friends. I was deeply saddened the other day hearing that Mathew Perry died in a hot tub due to drowning. During the shooting of Friends Mathew struggled with addiction. He lost weight and was unable to control himself. He eventually quit and was on the road to recovery. Addiction…. It’s a scary concept, knowing that if you start something, you may never be able to stop. But how can we trust ourselves to know that we won’t fall into temptation or pressure. Like I stated before, people are selfish and want attention. But why would you want to be left out? Therefore how can we trust our inner temptations? Or how can we trust our decisions if we don’t know what we don’t know?

Now that we know we can’t truly trust our friends, world, or ourselves, is there anyone we can trust? Well, what if we take a step back. Why don’t we, for the most part, trust in these things, but become aware of how these things are affecting our actions. Notice how friendships or influences are changing our own lifestyle. If we can notice these then we don’t have to worry about trusting them because we’ll notice when we are changing. However we still have to know that just because we are changing, it doesn’t mean for the worse. So, through experimenting, watch your actions and reveal if the influences are good or bad.