Greg's Real Love Blog

According to legend, in the ancient Phrygian city of Gordium—in what is now part of modern day Turkey—there once a memorial to a king, Midas, son of Gordias. Curiously, this memorial consisted of a cart whose shaft was fastened to a post with a large and intricate knot where neither end of the rope was visible. An oracle had foretold that whoever could untie this Gordian knot would become ruler of all Asia, and for several hundred years thousands of travelers tried but failed in their efforts to untie the knot. Then in 333 B.C. Alexander arrived in Gordium, and when he couldn’t find the ends of the rope, he untied it by drawing his sword and cutting the knot in half.

The problems of our lives can often seem as unsolvable as the Gordian knot, and most of us spend our entire lives looking for the exposed ends, hoping to unravel it all and make sense of it. We work on our parent issues, our addictions, our relationships, our marriages, our children, our abandonment issues, our sexual issues, and so on. Taken all together, it can seem hopelessly complicated.

But all these apparently unrelated problems are united by a common bond. Every thread of confusion and unhappiness in our lives is connected to the emptiness and fear that result from a lack of the one element—Real Love—that we must have in order to be happy. Once we really understand that the lack of Real Love is the root of all the problems we experience, the solution to those problems becomes rather obvious. As we find and share Real Love, we cut through the confusion and unhappiness in our lives as surely as Alexander cut through the apparent complexities of the Gordian knot.

On many occasions I have spoken with people who have been to five, eight, even ten therapists. In addition, they have attended dozens of workshops and read literally hundreds of self help books. And these people have consistently expressed their delight that the message of Real Love is so simple, that it cuts through all the haze and illuminates the truths they’ve always wanted to know.

As you diligently practice telling the truth about yourself, and as you exercise faith in that process, you will begin to feel the Real Love that other people have to offer. You’ll also share that loves with others, and you do all this, you’ll see the knots of your life simply fall away before you. It really does seem like a miracle.

Once there was a village nestled at the base of a range of rugged mountains. For generations the people had kept to their farms in the valley, perhaps because they enjoyed such an abundance of water, good soil, and other natural resources there.

One day, however, a few villagers wandered a short distance up into the foothills of the mountains, and they were astonished at the beautiful view. Never before had they seen the river, the forests, the fields, the orchards, and their homes from such a perspective.

When they returned to the village and shared their experiences, people were fascinated and began to make their own journeys into the foothills and then higher into the mountains. As they climbed, the benefits unfolded. The views became more varied and beautiful. The climbers became more physically fit. As they climbed together, they learned to cooperate more with each other. The higher they climbed, the more possibilities for development they could see in the valley.

Not everyone, however, found climbing to be an exhilarating and beneficial experience. One man, Vic, thought the whole “climbing thing” was a bit ridiculous. Nobody had ever climbed before, he thought, so why should they start now?

Nevertheless, one day when a group of his friends invited him on a climb, he said, “Oh, all right, I’ll go.”

After twenty minutes of walking, Vic stopped and asked, “How long does this take?”

“We’ll be in the foothills in a couple of hours,” Colleen said, “and in the mountains a couple of hours after that.”

Vic rolled his eyes and sighed. “It sure seems like a lot of work to me.”

“We told you before we left how long it would take, remember?” asked Michael.

“I just don’t see why you’d waste all this time and effort,” said Vic.

“Do you want to go back?” asked Cheryl.

Vic sighed again. “Oh, I guess I’ll keep going. What else can I do now?”

The group continued their walk, and twenty minutes later Vic stopped and said, “It sure seems like a long way.”

“We’re twenty minutes farther along than the last time you mentioned that,” said David, “but I think you’ll find that it’s worth it. It’s great exercise, we enjoy ourselves, and the view on the mountain is unbelievable.”

“I just don’t see what you’re talking about,” said Vic.

“I agree,” said David. “From here you don’t, but up there you will.”

The group continued walking, but twenty minutes later Vic stopped and said, “This is too much work.”

“We thought it was a lot of work at first too,” said Colleen, “but now we enjoy it. These climbs have changed our whole lives, in fact.”

“I just don’t get it, and I don’t have to do it,” said Vic.

“No, you really don’t,” said Michael. “You do not have to continue the climb.”

“Finally,” said Vic, “some good sense. Let’s go back and have some dinner.”

“You’re welcome to do that,” said Michael.

“What do you mean, I’m welcome to do that? Are you saying that you’d leave me?”

“Not at all,” said Cheryl. “This morning we all agreed that we’d be climbing into the mountains all day, possibly for a couple of days. You agreed to that also. We will be continuing the climb—that’s why we’re here—but we will certainly not force you to do that. You can choose to do whatever you wish.”

“So you’ll leave me?”

“No, we’ll be continuing the climb as we had all planned. If you go back home, you will actually be leaving us, but that’s all right. You have a right to do that. We’ll be fine.”

Vic was furious and stomped back home, where he sulked for several days, speaking to no one.

Climbing the mountains became quite a pastime for the villagers. With their new perspectives, they began working on projects all over the valley, doing things that never would have occurred to them before. People traveled more. New industries developed. People cooperated more and became happier.

Except for Vic, who stayed at home and complained. About everything. He complained that nobody ever came to see him, that nobody involved him in their new projects or industries, and that people seemed to be going somewhere without him all the time. Occasionally, a friend invited him on a climb, but he always refused, claiming that it was too hot or too cold or too far or too something.

Eventually, the face of the valley changed significantly. Farming, industry, and trade were transformed, and in the process Vic’s old ways of doing things became outmoded, and he complained bitterly about what had been taken from him and about what “those people” had done to him. He complained until the day he died, alone and bitter.

As with Vic, we always have a choice. We can choose to climb higher, learn more, love better, and become happier, or we can choose to act like Vic—like victims. We can complain, make excuses, blame other people, and whine, but if we continue in that course, we’ll only destroy ourselves. We have opportunities every day to choose between victimhood and happiness. May we be wise enough to see these choices and make the wiser ones.

Today I was riding my bicycle down the street for a bit of exercise when a man came frantically running out of his driveway, gesturing to me, and shouting, “Can you help me? Can you help me?”

Naturally, I pulled over to find out what I could do, and he led me up his driveway, where I met another man, who was standing beside a sleek Cadillac sedan. Both men began shouting their stories at me, so I stopped them and asked each of them in turn to tell me what was happening.

Each man was quite agitated and eager to be right, and I noticed that simply my being calm immediately had a soothing effect on both of them. As I listened to each man, the tension gradually drained from his face and body. As each man spoke, the other tried to interrupt on several occasions, but I gently reached out and touched the person who was interrupting and asked if he could wait until the speaker was finished. In this way, both men were able to tell their entire story.

Briefly, the man who shouted at me from the driveway had come from a foreign country to the Atlanta airport, some two hours away, and when he saw the limousine driver summon him to his car, he assumed that that was the standard mode of transportation from the airport. They had a brief conversation about the fare, but when they arrived at the passenger’s destination, the stated final fare was far different from the fare the passenger remembers being quoted to him originally. Hence the argument.

The passenger was absolutely certain he was right, and he repeatedly called the limousine driver a crook. The driver, on the other hand, was certain that the passenger was trying to cheat him, and both men wanted to call the police. I helped them see how easily the misunderstanding could have occurred. As I listened to each man’s position and expressed my understanding of it, he was finally able to describe how he might have contributed to the problem, and within moments of that, a solution was achieved.

We have a powerful need to feel accepted—to feel seen, valued, and listened to—and if that need is ignored, everything else goes badly: our marriages, our parenting, our relationships at work, and even our negotiations with complete strangers, like limo drivers. In this case I was fascinated once again to see the nearly universal application of Real Love. Two men were so angry that they couldn’t hear a word spoken by the other, but with a little Real Love—from someone they didn’t even know—their anger dissipated and a resolution was accomplished.

The more Real Love we introduce into our lives, the more we’ll see this kind of conflict elimination.

I once enjoyed a hike in the vast Arabian Desert. I had never seen so much sand. Everywhere I looked there was sand, punctuated here and there by a wisp of vegetation or a passing camel or two. I watched a caravan of jeeps, and for some time they appeared to be maneuvering on the sand as surely as one might drive on a concrete highway. But then one of the jeeps suddenly began to sink in the sand, and within a few feet it was buried well past its axles and partway up the doors. Although it had a powerful engine, the wheels could only spin, leaving the jeep quite immobilized.

On many occasions I have observed people behave much as the jeeps I observed. In the absence of Real Love, the only happiness we know is what we can obtain from our sources of Imitation Love, and if we can manage to earn enough acceptance, praise, power, sex, and so on, we can actually achieve some measure of satisfaction. In those moments, everything seems to go quite well, as with the initial progress of the jeeps on the sand.

But Imitation Love is undependable. Its effects wear off. The trading of it inevitably becomes unfair. And then the road on which we are traveling, the road we thought was firm and reliable, crumbles beneath our feet, and we are hopelessly mired, spinning our tires in the sand.

The greatest danger of Imitation Love may be that from time to time it actually does appear to work. It does provide moments of brief satisfaction, and if we don’t know any better, we believe that in those moments we have found “happiness.” But it never lasts, and when Imitation Love fails us, the disappointment is enormous.

What’s the solution? What can we do to create a dependable road from the sand? Nothing. We can’t dependably drive on sand, nor can we build houses on a foundation of it. Similarly, we can’t depend on Imitation Love for the happiness in our lives. We have to get off the sand entirely and find the Real Love that must form the foundation of any lasting joy.