You see, . . . you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too — even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.

Morrie says this to his class in a flashback during the second Tuesday. He has asked his class to perform a trust fall exercise, in which the students test one another's trust and reliability by doing trust falls; one student will fall straight backwards and must rely on another student to catch them. Not one student can trust another until one girl falls without flinching. Morrie notes that the girl had closed her eyes, and says that this exercise serves as a metaphor for the secret to trust in relationships; one must sometimes trust blindly, relying only on what they feel to guide them in their decision-making. He uses the exercise to teach his students that trustworthiness is a quality shared by two people in a partnership, and that each person takes a risk in trusting the other. This risk, however, is a risk that people must take. Morrie teaches his students that trust is blind; one can only judge whether or not to trust another based on an instinctive feeling, not because of any rational judgment or method of thinking. To trust someone is to close your eyes and fall back, hoping that the person your instincts have told you is trustworthy will catch you and keep you from harm.

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