The value of being a trustworthy person

Most of my columns I put in a separate blog. But this one I decided to put where maybe some of my family would see it. We have just gotten rid of a renter who was so untrustworthy that we felt uneasy even having her in our apartment. Her life seems to be going no where fast. It is sad. I tried to help, but her "trust account" was so over drawn that people wouldn't hire her and the trouble she was causing those close was beyond fair. So I wrote this for the paper. She probably won't see it, but it makes sense and "cents" to think of this fact of life.
The column is as follows:
I listened to an interview with a big financial adviser recently. What he said made sense and would certainly make lots of "cents" in the long run. Trust. We want to trust our financial people. The ones who are successful, the businesses that are successful, are the ones who develop consumer trust. I thought of that. It is true. Then I thought of individual lives. If a person started out with nothing and wanted to end up with something and thought it would all be a matter of circumstances beyond his control, he is wrong. He has what anyone else has, the choice about how he goes about building his bank account of trust. If from childhood he builds a reputation of honesty, of doing what he said he would, of being fair and ambitious, that reputation will open doors to opportunity all his life. Opportunities lead to money. Consequently, becoming trustworthy leads to happiness, not that money is happiness. It certainly helps, but happiness is naturally a byproduct of trust. Being able to go to bed at night without worry that you have harmed someone by your dishonesty is certainly a big factor in that state of happiness. So being trustworthy leads to money and happiness. It seems so simple. It seems to smart. I wonder why we don't teach this concept more forcefully to our children? Equate it with money and maybe it would be. It isn't that being trustworthy will necessarilay make one become a multi-millionaire or someone with no heartache. Bad things happen to good people. But the person with a reputation of being trustworthy will have a landlord who will be more patient, a boss who will save your job, a person or business who will give you credit, a spouse and children who will love and support you.
We all have access to the same priveledge of coming into a large trust account that will bless our lives. All it takes is the decisions and actions that make you a trustworthy person. It makes cents.