Do the Right Thing...

As I was sitting at a red light today, watching a truck zoom through the intersection, an interesting thought occurred to me:
We, as people, generally operate on the assumption that others are going to do the right thing. That truck came blazing through the intersection, assuming that I was going to stop at the red light.
This happens in all aspects of life: we go to work, assuming that our employer's going to pay us. We tell our innermost secrets to others, assuming that the people we tell them to are going to keep those secrets. We even enter relationships with others, thinking that the person we give our heart to is going to treat it well.
But as we get older, we see that people don't always do the right thing.
Sometimes people don't stop at stop lights, sometimes they don't keep our secrets. Sometimes people walk away from relationships for no apparent reason. Sometimes, there's abuse or there's infidelity in relationships.
Over time, some of us stop believing in others; we stop believing in the idea that others are going to do the right thing for us. And maybe this leads to a change in our perceptions. Maybe it leads to a change in our actions. Maybe it leads to total and complete apathy on our parts.
This is just a completely random thought on my part.
But I've always heard that as we get older, we get wiser. People have even gone so far as to tell me that age 30 is the key. That somehow, some way, when we get into our 30's, things are just more clear than they were before. I'm not sure how this is possible though. Does something just click for us? Through some magic act, we have some supreme clarity that we didn't have yesterday? Hard to believe...
And I'm wondering if maybe it's possible that by that time, we've just come to expect the worst in others. And maybe in that, we just aren't as surprised when things go wrong as we get older.
And I really hope that's not the case.
I, myself, am still hoping for that magic day of simple understanding and clarity at some point...