"Don't trust anyone, you will be disappointed":to dispel this sentence that a small inner voice sometimes reminds us of, philosophy professor Emmanuel Delessert gives us an exciting and inspiring plea on the need to do a little trust each other more (but not in a blind mole way either). No, opening up does not necessarily mean falling into the most total naivety. And even if, as Sancho Panza, the squire and companion of Don Quixote's adventures would tell us, it can allow us to live incredible stories and make wonderful friendships...
Ok, sometimes, when you open your heart to someone or start a day with eyes filled with optimism and ready to love the whole earth, you are sometimes disappointed... All the atrocities that you can see in the media - wars, kidnappings, murky news items, etc. - do not help the machine. But as Jacques de Coulon says in The Meditations of Happiness , we tend to see the negative more than the positive. Do you want proof ? Take a leaf and draw a black dot in the middle. What do you see ? Certainly a black dot. And what of the white rest of the page, yet much more extensive? In life, it's the same thing. We tend to see what's wrong rather than what's great.
The example of Emmanuel Delessert is telling:one day, in a supermarket, he sees a mother completely panicked because she has lost sight of her little boy for 2 minutes. Alerted by members of the store, a cashier makes a call on the loudspeaker and neither one nor two, the little one shows up at his checkout. When she finds her child, this mother will not be able to help but continue to think of the worst (that someone could have kidnapped her - which remains very hypothetical) without seeing all the momentum of solidarity, very real to him, which s was immediately implemented with customers and store staff. And yet, it rather gives faith in our humanity.
Exercise:Go to the street and ask several people for directions. The exercise may seem trivial, but when you take a step back and realize that all these people really want to help you, well… it feels good. Same observation when we go to events to meet new faces:in the vast majority of cases, we realize that even if there is not necessarily a "feeling", the majority of people are benevolent
Yes, we all know that when we place our trust, we can eat each other out of doors. It's true, to trust is to accept to show oneself in one's vulnerability. But as Emmanuel Delessert points out, without this trust and vulnerability, it is impossible to form any kind of relationship.
“To meet someone, in the strong sense of the term, is to leave “to their world”, to the singularity of their approach to reality, a chance to overflow, to cross borders. Without it, we are doomed to remain in an unsavory coexistence, like parallel lines,” he explains, before adding that “the idea of growing up, of evolving alone for oneself has little meaning. because the strengths and potential we have within us can only blossom "through the warmth and radiance of those around us".
If we had the choice between living a somewhat bland life but without (too many) sores caused by others AND having a blast even if it means eating a few cactuses, we would indeed choose the second option! And then the cactus, it makes us great toothpicks to better bite into life.
Exercise:if you are overwhelmed, and you are the type to want to control everything (at home and outside), delegate a task. By asking your family or colleagues for help, you will free yourself from a burden and be able to move forward on other things and you will see that 1/ your entourage is happy to help you, that 2/ everything will be fine. and that 3/ it will boost your confidence in yourself and in others.
On this point, Emmanuel Delessert is formal. Because we are free beings, and this freedom means that surprises can happen. However, "betrayal in no way invalidates the need to trust," he tells us, before adding that it can even teach us to love better:"betrayals tell us a little more each time about who we are and invite us to never neglect the freedom of the other by taking their love for granted”.
There, what we remember and what we like is that the possibility that something bad can happen can (ok, be stressful, but also…) make our relationships more fun! No more having fun with our girlfriends and spicing it up with Doudou to strengthen our ties, being nice but not stupid to move forward with the potato, that's our philosophy!
Exercise:We learn to be nice without getting eaten out. There are three steps for this, which we explain in these linked articles:take stock of yourself, stop constantly justifying yourself and reverse the roles.
> Emmanuel Delessert, Dare to trust , Marabout, 2015
> Price:€15.90
