Betrayal teaches the one thing a textbook can’t: who to hand the keys to.

Trust is difficult to assess in advance because people are mostly reliable until the moment they are not. Being let down is a painful way to learn what warning signs look like, and it is also the way most people learn them. The lesson is not that everyone is dangerous, it is that trust comes in sizes and you decide who gets which one.

Rather than closing entirely, sort the people around you by what you would actually trust them with. Small things, then bigger ones over time. Let the size of the trust grow with the evidence.