Who do you trust?

Your friends and family, of course. That’s the standard answer.

DO you?

Really?

Look at your family first. Look at those closest to you. Look at your wife or husband.

Do they always tell you the truth? The complete truth?

Ah, you think they do.

Good.

Now, assuming you’re a man, do you always tell the truth to your wife?

You do?

What about that woman you looked at the other day? You remember, the one with the very short skirt. What was it you were thinking about her? Now you do remember, don’t you? You did tell your wife all about it didn’t you? No?

So are the closest members of your family always completely honest with you?

I doubt it. It may not matter.

So who do you trust to always tell you the truth?

Friends?

Few of them. Any of them? Are they more concerned about the appearance they give to their "friends" than any actual honesty. Probably. And is that bad? Probably not. And is it important? Again, probably not.

Occasionally, once or twice in a lifetime if you’re lucky, someone comes along that you feel you CAN be completely honest with. Someone to whom you can bare your soul and share your innermost thoughts, desires, secrets. And you do share them, totally and completely. Rarely is this the person you marry. Rarely is this the person with whom you make your home or share your bed. It’s much deeper than that, and much more important.

And they share their thoughts with you. And they understand you, and you them.

If you’re lucky, you’ll lose contact with them as they, or you, drift away on your individual paths through life. They will remain a perfect memory that stays with you forever. The only piece of the world in perfect harmony with you and the only time in your life you can drop completely the barriers that surround each of us every day. And even without contact with them, you continue to share that harmony. Life will always be better in the future.

But so rarely will you be so lucky. You won’t lose contact. Sooner or later the perfection of complete harmony will be destroyed. And it’s always the same way, although you are as likely to destroy it as they. You lie. You tell a lie – an unimportant lie. A lie that doesn’t matter. Something you did, or didn’t do. Something you thought or didn’t think. A lie that would have no importance, no relevance if told to someone else. But this is the person who has shared their innermost thoughts with you; someone for whom and from whom nothing about either of you is hidden. A soul-mate.

And you just destroyed it with that lie.