I often notice one thing: people have no trust in others. They believe that they are on top of the world, and that they don’t need to trust others. They think that they can succeed in life all by themselves.   

When someone offers to do something nice for someone, two thoughts often pop up into the head of the person being helped: “Either this person has a crush on me, or they want something from me.” The way I see it, that is a problem, and shows just what is wrong with our messed up society.

For example, a high school student in FISD recently created an app that allows students to check their grades and GPA without using the Home Access Center. To me, it sounded like a neat idea. It’s cool that a student would be able to do that, and also, I think it’s great that a student would be generous enough to do that for other students. But immediately after the app became popular, the district came to the conclusion that this kid was up to no good.

Of course, it is possible that this student did have malicious intentions. It’s always possible, I’m not denying that. But there is no reason to jump to that conclusion right off the bat.

In this day and age, people assume that whenever someone acts selfless, they are up to no good.

So what is the problem? Why do people keep thinking that just because someone is being helpful, he or she must have other malicious intentions? Well, for one, people are a product of the age in which they live. In our technology dependent society, we have become so accustomed to being able to do everything by ourselves that when someone goes out of their way to do something for other people, it seems unnatural and strange.

Another reason is that in our modern world, crime is higher than ever. Over the past few decades, with a rise in the amount of violent crimes, we have slowly begun to lose trust in other people. Now, it is almost all gone.

I’m not saying that people don’t have a right to be afraid. They do. It is only natural to be afraid living in the violent and turbulent world that we live in today. We, in our little Frisco bubble, are relatively safe, I know that, but that doesn’t take away our fear.

Our country is at war with terrorism. In the middle east, people are getting slaughtered daily. We live in a crappy time, there’s no reason to sugarcoat that. It’s alright to be afraid. But that doesn’t mean that we have to lose all of our trust in our fellow men.

Humans are a tribal species, and in order to be healthy, we need to be around other people. When we lose all of our trust in others, we disobey our natural instincts to be surrounded by others.  

We have lost trust because of the situation that our world is in. In all honesty, that is completely warranted. But unless we regain our trust and band together to fight our enemies, we will not overcome them. We, as humans, are strong in groups, but not alone. Alone we are nothing more than a few bones and a couple pounds of flesh. Only by regaining our trust can we survive.