A Suspicious Mind Rethinking Trust and Privacy

I am present on all social media platforms and like to browse and be informed. I am very much aware of the fact that most of the info I receive is false, or at least not entirely true. Still, I persist. I post, I interact and sometimes I stay away from certain subjects. Probably because of a suspicious mind rethinking trust and telling me to stay on the safe side.

Privacy In The Past

First of all, I grew up in a world where the main lesson on privacy was not to talk to strangers. Our daily routine was based on trust. Consequently, I trusted my parents that they would protect me no matter what. They trusted me to do my homework and go straight home from school. We all trusted my teachers that they would teach me valuable things and above all – to teach me how to keep studying and advance professionally. Everyone trusted the drivers on the streets to keep their side of the lane. We all trusted our doctors with our lives.  People trusted their next-door neighbors to be normal, sane people able to look after the children if needed.  Therefore, there had not been any talks about psychopaths or any kind of maniacs luring around.

Privacy Today

What privacy entails nowadays, greatly differs. Hence, the exposure of the smallest details from our lives appears to be the danger to our privacy . There are a lot of fields to cover if we want to be fully protected. However, I honestly think that we have never been fully protected in the first place.

Recently, a man contacted me on Facebook after I left a comment on a post regarding education.  It appeared we shared common interests. He was polite, not at all pushy. and he looked normal. Nevertheless, I replied with a single phrase. I did not feel the need to get into details and start a conversation. I felt endangered. Why? The trust was gone. The trust in general.

We are constantly being told that this world is full of psychos. Therefore, we learned quickly that drug dealers, murderers and other criminals are on the streets, just waiting to claim us as victims. We are being threaten by other humans. The evil ones.

The Outcome

The result is clearly visible. We keep our accounts private. Above all, we take all safety measures to ensure our loved ones are secured. We take self-defense lessons. We do not share our thoughts openly as we used to.  We are binge watching crime series, taking pleasure in a fact we are not the characters in it. We are unconsciously preparing for that something bad to happen.

While doing this, we are also alienating from people who are close to us. I bet everyone here reconsidered the kind words someone uttered. Maybe even made a false impression in his or her own mind by twisting the words and giving them the new meaning, quite different from the original one.  Sometimes, we do not know how to take a compliment. Being suspicious at  altruistic gestures has become reality.  It appears that we are on the verge of completely losing the foundation of all human connections – the trust.

I read it somewhere that if a child learns at the very young age that there are people he or she can rely on, that child will be trustworthy in adulthood.  It seems that majority of issues with trust happen unconsciously, although we have built the trust based on conscious experience.  Finally, will we let the circumstances we live in take their toll on us, or will we fight back?

We are dying to hear whether you feel unsafe in any given situation.