You have one choice in what you assume about the world before engaging with others:
Either you can think people are genuinely good, rational, and fair if you make them feel understood, respected, and acknowledged. Or you can believe that everyone is out to hurt, cheat, and lie to you the moment you let your guard down. Either there’s a deep gravitational pull toward altruism within human nature—or society is just another jungle where selfishness rules.
Do you want to know the hidden cost of emotional armor?
I can tell you from my own experience that to be in a frequent “survival” state of being— a state of hypervigilance— is not a nice place to be in life. Such a state when, in doubt, you default to thinking that others are full of negative intent against you. Even those with whom you share your environment.
Living this way optimizes the short term by “minimizing the risk” of being betrayed— when correlating trust and vulnerability as a weakness— in exchange for a long-term feeling of constant fear, separateness, and nihilism. This mindset reduces others to mere means, never ends.
Most of us have been deeply hurt by the actions of a person in the past— a lover, a business partner, or a larger community or institution. This, in turn, makes us less naive and innocent and invites us to be as cynical and radically skeptical as possible to avoid getting hurt for a second time. What’s rarely discussed is that while cynicism will help you not get betrayed by free riders and unethical individuals, it also brings a cost to your psychological well-being.
Adulthood often brings the illusion of self-sufficiency
The fact is that as self-sufficient as we aim to be— we are at all times embedded in a larger social network. Anything that happens in this social ecosystem will eventually have a repercussion on us. Because such is a reality, the invitation is to resolve to play the game of life with the acknowledgment that it isn’t possible to fully love without being willing to get heartbroken in the process.
Real maturity is knowing that cynicism is just another state that has to be overcome, just as simple naivety.
The road less traveled is trust. Even when you know others can hurt you.
And yet, the antidote to this fear isn’t more walls, but more willingness…
We will be willing to take the risk because we know that we, too, have such potential.
Sooner or later— we will all witness how, in certain circumstances— we hurt others even when we don’t intend to. We ourselves can fall prey to greed and envy, resentment and arrogance, and behave mistakenly when feeling angry or having had a bad night of sleep.
We move from dependence,
to independence,
and finally to interdependence.
Though constant dependence holds no virtue, an obsession with independence can block the full flow of love and connection.
Mature trust is the only bridge to a state of interdependence with other people. All that is needed is to constantly take a leap of faith and believe that, in the long term, trust is the first step to mutually alleviating suffering.
Gaining the trust of others and not betraying that trust will win you a good reputation. Doing good will give you a psychological reward that makes it easier to be proud of what you stand for. And because over time you have cultivated a positive intent towards others, you start opening up to the assumption that others who are interested in flourishing as individuals will also act from a positive intent because they also have arrived to the conclusion that there is no better alternative.
Maturity means acknowledging
our ever present state of vulnerability.
This mindset is not conditional to life being fair. Getting cheated occasionally is a small price for trusting the best of everyone because when you trust the best in others— the truth is— they generally treat you best, and you will live a much happier life.
About the author of this blog
Santi Coach
After a decade of relentless striving, he stepped away to ask a difficult question: Would there ever be a clear definition of “enough”? The absence of a clear answer marked the beginning of an extraordinary realization.
Now, Santi helps clients achieve results they haven’t been able to reach on their own—while reminding them that fulfillment must be found along the way, even in the midst of incompleteness and imperfection.
Many of his clients come to him feeling stuck in the endless pursuit of “more”—more attention, more money, more muscle, more recognition, more talent. Santi supports them in learning to embrace life as it is—right here, right now—as a necessary step toward moving forward with greater clarity, appreciation, and purpose.
Copyright © 2025 Santiago Barragan Noguera. All rights reserved.
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