The Secret of Greatness
What makes us really great? What brings out the best that we can possibly be?
Do we need to be rich? Powerful? Famous? Smart?
While these achievements might be important, true greatness comes from something far more amazing: love.
The secret of greatness is to love others—no matter what they do to you. This doesn’t mean accepting mistreatment or allowing harmful actions. Instead, it’s finding the strength to rise above your feelings of hate, revenge and resentment.
“What Is Greatness?”
“The hardest task one can have is to continue to love his fellows despite all reasons he should not.”
“Never use what is done to one as a basis for hatred. Never desire revenge.”
“To hate is the road to disaster. To love is the road to strength. To love in spite of all, is the secret of greatness. And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Whenever you feel like hating someone, you stop yourself. You find a way to love that person. It’s not easy, but the rewards and benefits you earn are amazing.
Three Examples: Aunt Karen, Road Rage and Peter the Partner
1. Aunt Karen
As soon as you arrive at your family’s holiday party, your stomach twists when you see your Aunt Karen. Ever since you were young, she has criticized you. “What’s happening with you? Why did you drop out of college? I can’t believe you are failing. You’re wasting your potential.”
If you had known Aunt Karen would be at the family event, you would have skipped it. Now, you want to leave. But she sees you and yells, “There you are! C’mere! I think you avoid me (haha).”
You decide to be a great person and love your Aunt Karen despite all reasons you should not. You give her a hug and get a shock.
You suddenly realize she’s now in her 70s. In fact, she hasn’t criticized you for more than 20 years. You are surprised to find you actually do love her. You almost cry from joy.
2. Road Rage
You are going down the road enjoying the drive when some idiot cuts in front of you. You slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. You send him a mental curse and hope he has a rotten life.
You notice you feel rotten. You blame the other driver for this feeling and start driving recklessly yourself.
But then you think, “Hey! I don’t want to hate anyone. I’m going to love that guy.” You change your attitude and feel a little understanding for him. You think, “He must be late for work” and you wish him well.
Within seconds, you feel better and forget about it. You go back to enjoying your drive.
3. Peter the Partner
A few years ago, you and your friend Peter bought a small van. He used it during the day to make deliveries from his flower shop and you used it at night for your Uber gig.
One night, you notice the van is missing. You call Peter who says, “Oh, hey, yeah, um, sorry, I forgot to tell you that I sort of rented it to this guy. I mean, uh, well, I sold it because I had to pay off some bills. Don’t you owe me some money anyway? Soooo, think we should call it even. Sound good partner?”
You say, “I can’t believe this! You sold our van? You really did it this time Peter!” You hang up and vow to never speak to him again.
You plot your revenge. You’ll spray paint on his house windows. You’ll steal his bike. You’ll spread rumors about him.
Every time you think about Peter and the van, you get upset. Even two weeks later, you still hate him. It ruins your mood so much that people notice your hatred and avoid you.
But then you learn about becoming a great person. You think, “Well, it does not apply with Peter because he’s a ^%$#@! criminal bum!” But you feel so bad you decide to give it a try.
You close your eyes and love Peter despite all reasons you should not. It takes several minutes, but soon you feel a bit better. Each time you think about him you love him again. Soon you stop thinking about him.
After a few days, you call him to end the partnership on good terms.
As soon as Peter hears your voice, he says, “Hi! I’m glad you called. I’m so sorry about that van! I sold it without talking to you and that was really stupid of me. I’ll find a way to pay you back as soon as I can.”
You feel wonderful. You say, “Sure, pay me back if you like, but don’t worry about it. I’m sorry our arrangement failed. Good luck Peter.”
The van memory stops hurting you. People like being around you again. You feel great!
10 Benefits of Loving People, Despite All Reasons to Hate Them
1. Your stress drops and soon vanishes. You are healthier and happier.
2. People who hate you, hate you less. They may even stop hating you completely.
3. When you love instead of hating or wanting revenge, you feel spiritual and warm; a natural high.
4. You can defuse attacks. If someone tries to hurt you, and you love them, they can’t do it. They can’t win their evil game if you won’t become their victim.
5. Old enemies from your past stop bothering you. Loving them in your own mind, without even contacting them, gives you relief.
6. Holding onto anger is exhausting. Loving people, despite their bad actions, gives you energy.
7. Hate repels support. If you hate someone who can help you, they will not like giving you their help or advice. But if you love them no matter what they do, they change their minds.
8. You do not ruin valuable relationships. If you love them despite brief explosions of anger directed at you, you do not feel a need to explode back. If you patiently love the person, they will calm down and maybe even apologize. All is well.
9. Love attracts money. Hatred stops money from coming to you. When you are a loving person, you attract money. You are a “prosurival” person. (See “How to Attract Money.”)
10. Because you are in a good mood, no matter what anyone does to you, you earn an amazing reputation. People trust, admire and respect you. They say, “What a great person!”
Three Self-Improvement Exercises for Greatness
By doing these exercises, you will enjoy some of these ten benefits IMMEDIATELY. In fact, your income will soon increase. Try all three.
1. Love yourself despite any reasons not to. You make your life worse if you feel any hatred for yourself, no matter how bad you have been. If you love yourself first, it’s much easier to love everyone else.
2. Love everyone around you. Create a circle of love for the people in your family, neighborhood, workplace and everyone else you know. Love them for no reason. Why not? It’s good practice.
3. Think of someone you dislike because they hurt you. Convert your bad feelings for them into love. You can contact them or not. Repeat until you have no hate for anyone.
Five Steps to Become a Greater Person
1. Be a person who loves everyone without hesitation or doubt. It has nothing to do with sympathy, sex or using drugs. You are just a person who happens to really like people in general.
2. If someone tries to get you to hate him or her, refuse to play their game. You do not need new enemies. So instead, generate some love for the person, even if only a small amount.
3. If you have to stop a person from hurting others or causing damage, use as much anger or force as you need to use. You can do this without hatred. In fact, they stop their bad acts faster if they see you do not hate them.
4. Make yourself tougher by loving difficult, nasty, evil people. In fact, it’s easier to face and handle difficult people, if you love them. You become a lion tamer!
5. Form a habit to automatically love someone who triggers your hatred. For example, when someone bruises your ego, makes you wrong or embarrasses you, train yourself to automatically love them before your hatred takes over.
“To love, in spite of all, is the secret of greatness.” — L. Ron Hubbard from “What is Greatness?“