Manic Monday

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If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be and why?

I've started this answer three or four times now, but everytime I "pick" something I realize that without that, I wouldn't be who I am. And there's the very large fact that they weren't the same. I wish Dad would have been more tuned in, but he was WAY more tuned into my life than he was to my siblings' lives as children. I wish my mom would have been (would be) more honest about her childhood, but she did leave enough clues that we've figured more out than she realizes.

Do you think that the world will be a better or a worse place 100 years from now?

About the same, though it's sorta dependent on whether humans have killed themselves off as a race yet at that point.

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecc 1:9)

At the beginning of a relationship, do you trust your new partner unless there is something specific to make you do otherwise, or do you withhold your trust until he/she has earned it?

I can't speak to new romantic relationships, since I haven't really had one of those in over two decades. Who knows how I would manage that.

So I'll answer in terms of friendship: I trust, up to a point. Frankly, I'm not sure I extend True Friendship without recognizing a certain level of trustworthiness. The older I get, the more I realize how much I (must) differentiate among my friends. Some friends I would trust with my life, my deepest secrets; those are my Friends. Some friends have entrusted me with their lives and some deep secrets; those are friends as well, but not necessarily Friends. And some people I wouldn't trust to mail a letter for me. Those are friends, too, but Thin-Ice Friends. I like them, I even love some of them, but they have not shown a great deal of reliability, or have been negligent in hurtful ways. I would never, ever, waste our time together by trying to make our relationship into Friendship.