You know that trust game they play at retreats and things like that?  The game where you fall backwards and rely on someone to catch you?

MF and I were playing that game Friday while we were hanging out at the Gilroy outlets.  "Here," he said.  "Fall backwards, and I'll catch you."

"I don't like that game," I said.

"Why not?  Don't you trust me?" he said.

So to show him that I did, I fell backwards into him.  But like many people, I have a difficult time with trust.  I fell back but bent my body forward right before he caught me.

"What?  Here, try it again.  Trust me."

And so I did.  I fell backwards again until I stopped bending my body forward. 

"Good!" he said with a certain satisfaction.  "Now you catch me."

"What?  But I'm so much smaller than you!  It's going to be hard to catch you."

"Phuong, how am I going to trust you if you don't trust yourself?"

So we switched, and I tried to catch him.  As anticipated, he was difficult to catch because of our relative weights and strengths.  He wasn't even falling with his entire weight, and I could barely catch him.

Still, as I discovered that moment, when you care about someone enough, you'll do what you can not to let them fall to the ground, regardless of "difficult circumstances."  Trust is more than about possessing ability; its complexity lies in efforts and intentions, in whether it's self-reliance or external reliance.