Why do some people always think that there is a hidden agenda behind other people’s actions and words? This is something that got my mind worked up for quite sometime now. Some people are simply suspicious of others’ acts and words and never take things at face value. I always wonder how one was raised or what life experiences he or she had to face in his or her past to become so suspicious of another. Suspicious people never take things at face value. Regardless of how well intended a person might be when doing or saying something, they somehow manage to find reasons not to fully trust the person’s actions or what they have said. I don’t know if this is a means to protect themselves from disappointment or if it is just a toxic habit they’ve developed through out their lives.
One thing I have come to believe is that people who always and regardless of the situation at hand are suspicious of others are not to be trusted themselves. A person who for example had lent a large sum of money to a trusted friend who unfortunately defaulted on the loan has a good reason not to trust people with his or her money again in the future. A person who was betrayed by his or her life partner in the past has good reason to be easily suspicious of the acts and words of another person he or she meets in the future. But what do you make of a person who believes in every situation that everyone has a hidden agenda? And this hidden agenda is never a good one.
When talking with these kind of people, I sometimes ask myself if it is me who is too naïve or is it them who are too suspicious? The problem with dealing with overly wary and skeptical people is that there is always some misunderstanding. And this is because they never spell out their suspicions for you to deal with them upfront. You think you are on the same page when doing something together with these people although in reality you have different understanding and perception of the thing that is being done. And this always leads to arguments or fights that are difficult to resolve because issues are not spread out on the table for an honest discussion.
People who say what they mean and mean what they say are not only true to themselves but are also trustworthy in the eyes of others. You can take these kinds of people for their words and actions. And this is not a characteristic of overly suspicious people. You can never do enough good for suspicious people because you know you will be suspected of some dark hidden agenda. You can never be too honest and straightforward with suspicious people because you know your “seemingly” straightforward words will be taken as way to hide something which is way darker. So how does one deal with these kinds of people? I do not know the answer.
