Relationships are a great blessing, whether it’s parental relationship, sibling relationship, a friendship or work-related relationships.

Every relationship is based on trust and without trust, the foundation of a relationship gets weak. If there is anything that can have the most negative effect on a relationship and destroy it, it is doubt. This word “doubt” seems too small, but this little word is enough to blur the beauty of relationships. Doubt is a termite that makes a person hollow inside, it blindfolds, making him loose his ability to think and understand.

The most stupid person is the one who comes under the influence of someone’s words and doubts another person. Sometimes what we see with our own eyes can be so different from the reality, because there are always two sides of a picture. We should not believe everything that we see and hear.

Since childhood we have listened to many stories that convey moral lessons on how misunderstandings and doubts can spoil relationships and situations. Among them, one stands out for me where a third person creates a misunderstanding between two best friends and because of this, their friendship ends. Later, when they find out the truth, they are full of regret.

These are not just stories, but a reality of life. I have seen people drifting apart due to suspicion that has been planted by other people. Doubt is just like a drug, once you get used to it, it becomes very difficult to get out of its effect.

No one is perfect in this world and everyone has different perspectives, so instead of doubting and considering a person wrong because of his perspective, we should try to understand his or her point of view. If one keeps looking for a perfect person and keeps doubting people, then one would be left alone.

Doubt is a state of mind in which you are assuming wrong things and when you share your doubt with others, your doubt becomes stronger. The only person who can fix this problem is you, which you can do by controlling your negative thoughts. This habit of constantly doubting someone causes you to lose your peace of mind, your health and eventually your relationships. The fact is that the person who is being doubted upon is not in so much pain, as compare to the person who is doubting, because he didn’t do any wrong and doesn’t know what is being thought of him.

There are many reasons which lead you to doubt, but the most common among them are these four. Firstly, there could be an incident from your past that can lead you to be sceptical. For instance, if you had a friend in the past with whom you have always been very sincere and helpful, but he or she was not sincere with you, this will get fixed in your mind. As a result, even though your new friends are sincere, but you will doubt them.

Secondly, sometimes we may have seen or heard an incident that happened with someone else, but it will leave such an impression on us that it will make us think that the same is happening to us. For example, if a friend tells that his friend stole something from his school bag, and then if something from our bag gets lost in school, we will quickly start being suspicious of our friends first.

Another reason is also the influence of media and television, where we see people indulging in scheming and family politics, with many negative characters that are superficially good to others, which makes them easily deceive them. All of it has a very negative effect in our mind, leading us to assume that people can also fool us while pretending to be nice and sweet.

Last, but definitely not the least, it is Satan who creates mischief by putting wrong ideas into our heads and it is human nature to fall prey to the devil’s schemes.

The example of doubt is like water dripping from a pipe, which you ignore, but the day the pipe bursts, you incur great loss. Therefore, doubt should not be allowed to stay in your mind for long, you should either talk about it with the concerned person to clear it out, or just forget about it. The seed of misunderstanding and doubt ruins a happy home.

Communication is the best way to clear up confusing thoughts. It is also the right way to reach the truth. Scepticism should not be allowed to make your life miserable and put your relationships in trouble.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 19th, 2021