Boundless Relationships: How Love for All Scales Us

AVAlexander Volchek

A person cannot genuinely grow and expand if they start choosing whom to help and whom not to help. I'll become closer friends with people, with my employees, so that it will be easier for me to manipulate them later. But I understand perfectly well that for some people, the price of this club should be five thousand dollars a month.

DMDmitry Mugenov

I really enjoy combining and integrating different subjects. One of the ideas you liked was that nothing is more important than anything else.

AVAlexander Volchek

Nothing can be more important than anything else. That's a very interesting statement. I can't say I've ever heard it before or that I rely on it, but I can certainly say it resonates with me. Because anything that happens in life is life itself, right? And if it is life itself, a part of life, how can we single out one priority or another? I'm talking about choosing priorities in a very grounded way, without illusions. Not something like, “But what if you're dying and can't eat?” Of course, if you're dying and can't eat, you'll make a decision to save your life. We're discussing how to feel balanced over a long period of time and throughout your life, rather than how to feel balanced here and now, through the very next step. I'm talking about how a person can truly grow and expand, genuinely expand. This isn't growth for one day or one hour. It isn't growth aimed at getting a quick result in two weeks. Genuine expansion means understanding and feeling your whole life: your family, your business, your professional work, your interests and hobbies, your joys and grief.

And within that whole life, being able to make the right decisions from a sense of freedom and love for other people. Always, regardless of the moment you're in. Absolutely always. Always being in a state of awareness, absolutely always. That leads to genuine expansion.

DMDmitry Mugenov

If you're really living your life and sort of—well, not “sort of,” but when you're moving toward truth, striving for truth, at some point you have to arrive at the understanding that nothing is more important than anything else. The second idea you found really good today is that genuinely growing closer to another person is one of the most important things. Even parting will be easier if you genuinely connect with that person, grow closer to them.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes, because for many people—the thing is, for many people there's something subconscious. That doesn't mean they... There's a subconscious pattern. A person immediately closes themselves off because they're afraid of conflict, and conflict often centers on parting.

DMDmitry Mugenov

It's like someone thinking, “If I buy a bicycle, it will get stolen and I'll be upset.” In other words, I'll make the bicycle mine, buy it, it will get stolen, and I'll be upset.

AVAlexander Volchek

And so I won't buy it.

DMDmitry Mugenov

But relationships with people are different.

AVAlexander Volchek

Completely different.

DMDmitry Mugenov

It's not about taking possession, right?

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes.

DMDmitry Mugenov

And so it works differently.

There are partnerships you just pass through: “I hired employees, rented an office, we did some work, and then we went our separate ways without any fuss. I gave the office back. The employees have all been let go, and that's that.” The question is, even in small projects, is it worth investing in relationships with those employees, who may be temporary, with a temporary office and so on? Because then, perhaps, parting with them will also be easier and won't cause any problems.

AVAlexander Volchek

When you talk about choosing where to invest your energy in building partnerships, you're essentially starting to choose which person is good and which person is bad. And you start placing yourself above other people. That's absolutely not—it's absolutely not genuine. It's like saying, “I'll help my own child more than someone else's because this is my child. I'll do more things for this person because they're my boss. And I'll invest more in a partnership with this person because they could potentially bring me more money. But this is just a small partnership. Why would I devote time to it? I'll interact with them a little, smile at them three times, but smile at that other person ten times.” A person cannot genuinely grow and expand if they start choosing whom to help and whom not to help. You cannot express genuine love selectively. That cannot happen. Either it happens naturally toward everything, or it doesn't happen. Can it happen spontaneously, by chance, or occasionally? Yes, sometimes it can happen spontaneously, by chance. But it isn't something I've chosen: “I'll express a state of love toward this person, but I won't express a state of love toward that person.”

“I'll help this person, but I won't help that person. Here I'll invest in a partnership to really get to know the person, but there I won't.” That's a somewhat selfish motive. And there can be another selfish motive, to fill out the picture: “I'll become closer friends with people, with my employees, so that it will be easier for me to manipulate them later.” For example, to get them to quit of their own accord, or to get them to work a lot. But that's all manipulation. It isn't developing relationships; it's developing relationships in the direction of deterioration. It isn't developing relationships in terms of your own growth and expansion as a person. I'm not saying there aren't situations where you should do that in terms of social arrangements. We live in a social world. In any case, we live in a world with rules. Often you hire an employee who says, “Pay me, and only then will I do it.” So you're exchanging that kind of energy. After all, we don't live in a world where people directly sense how much energy is worth. We aren't there. For example, I have a private club of my own. The current price is one hundred and twenty dollars a month.

But I understand perfectly well that for some people, the price of this club should be five thousand dollars a month, and for others, one hundred and twenty. But I can't set different prices for... So there's a certain averaging out. Then the question is how each person feels it for themselves, how they feel it. Because exchanging energy and the way events unfold in the future, ten or twenty years from now, for money is a mistake. How can we compare those things? What did it affect? Everyone is used to thinking in the short term. Your back hurts, so you go to an osteopath. They helped you, and you feel better. But perhaps that osteopath treated an injury and, in doing so, prevented you from misstepping this year, breaking your spine, and being disabled for life. But because we basically don't see these patterns—a person doesn't see these cause-and-effect relationships, simply doesn't see them—they don't see them, don't know about them, and in fact don't even think about them. So they assess it incorrectly and make the wrong exchange of that energy. Very often, managers don't make the right exchange of energy with their employees. Partners don't make the right exchange of energy with each other, because they start keeping count.

They start keeping count: “I did more for you,” or “I did less for you.” But genuine love has no concept of calculation, no concept of any limits, no concept of an end to it. As if I'm giving love and at some point say, “All right, that's enough. This person has had enough love.” That can't happen. There's no such thing as enough love. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. You can't give a person more love than they need. You can't.