The Tao of Relationships

Relationships are becoming increasingly more difficult to have and to preserve.
From the dawn of history, we have tales of bad relationships.
The Greek mythology is full of stories of relationships gone bad.
From family feuds to tragic romantic love affairs to wars between clans and nations, people had always had a hard time getting along.

But all those Greek tragedies were special, rare occasions, not the social norm. Most of the time people had good relationships. They knew how to start a conversation, communicate effectively, handle differences and settle disputes.
I know this first hand because I grew up on a farm were the social dynamics were unchanged for hundreds of years.

There was a time when everybody knew their neighbor by name when children play in the streets without fear of being kidnaped and when romance ended up in marriages that lasted a lifetime.
Those days are gone.

We are living in the Internet era where everyone has thousands of friends and followers but if you need a ride to the airport you have to call a taxi because you don't know anybody that will give you a ride. We are living in the era where internet dating offers thousand of matches to choose from but not a single one that you would choose to go out with.
Our marriages are statistically doomed from the start. Our best hopes are to find somebody that will stick around for more than a couple of month.
We live solitary lives in cities crowded with millions of people.

What happened?
We build societies and the human civilization to serve us the humans, to make us safer, prosperous, healthier and happier.
In time the roles have changed we are no longer the masters of the social and economic system. We are the slaves.
We have become part of the machine part of the system.

Our relationships have changed into social contracts. Love has become business. Anything that doesn't serve the system is discarded everything that benefits the system is promoted.
And we buy into it because it gives us the promise of success.
But people are becoming increasingly unhappy and all the material success and convenience of the modern life cannot replace the feeling of love and belonging we have lost.

To love is to give without asking anything in return.
That goes against the social construct which is to take, to accumulate without giving anything in return or at least to give back as little as possible. That is the formula for success.
That is the way we live our lives.

This is the Ego reality. The world of fragmentation and separation, the world of scarcity and fear.
We have promoted the worst in us the Ego to be the one that takes all the decisions and directs our lives.
We have created a soulless society where love and happiness come in a pill bottle.
We all want love, we are starved for love, we all are beginning to receive it but who is the one to give?

Business is good for business but life is not a business transaction.
The business rules do not apply to life and relationships and if they are applied, the results are always a disaster.
The business model is based on competition on having winners and losers. Love is not a business affair
In love, you can't have a winner and a loser.
In a bad relationship, both parties are losers.