What if we had all the time in the world? Would we use this time to build trust or would we fill the time with all the things that we do 
now, and still be no further ahead?
When I was in university, I was able to live on a meager sum of $4,000 per year (not including tuition) and still have a fun and interactive lifestyle. It wasn’t a lot of money, but then, everyone around me didn’t have a lot of money and so our wealth (or lack of it) was comparative and our lifestyles were as well. As I entered into my career, my income and costs increased and I was no further ahead (and often further behind).
This is the conundrum of trust and time. Our real and perceived busyness creates a real and perceived tension with the building of trust. Or does it? What if trust and time did not compete with each other on an X-Y axis but rather were perspectives that we brought into our collaborative efforts.
We can change this picture. It requires willingness, intentionality and purposefulness. It would take a focus on building relationships that are deeply connected. It would require that we enter into every conversation with the intention of giving both of our time and focusing on building trust.
The Suncor Energy Foundation recently brought together leaders from the energy, Indigenous and community benefits sectors to explore the challenge of managing both trust and time. The conversations over the three days were diverse and deep. Participants explored the relationship of truth to trust and time. Indigenous leaders reminded us that time is a construct in which we need to look at from a single day and a seven-generation perspective.
