This morning I read a story of touching loyalty from a dog to its owner. For the last six years, an Argentine German Shepherd has kept a vigil over its master’s grave, after having found it in a cemetery he had never visited before [1]. Loyalty is impressive wherever we see it, even if we may wonder exactly how the dog knew to go to that particular grave, and what particular love between the two inspired that loyalty. Despite all that has happened in my own life, I tend to be a person of fierce loyalty, even if it is is rather critical, and often unrecognized.

Loyalty is easily understood on a personal level. Ties of love and connection, whether of blood or friendship or attraction help encourage our loyalty and fidelity to others, to behave to others with respect and consideration. When we are loyal to someone, we think the best of them and believe the best of them until proven otherwise, giving the benefit of the doubt to others and working out problems at the earliest possible moment rather than letting them build into massive problems. Loyalty, like love and respect, is a difficult path.

Part of the reason for its difficulty is that it is so rarely rewarded. People are often very demanding of respect but are not so good about giving it to others, reacting with great hostility to imagined slights or offenses and not treating others as they would wish to be treated. Nations demand loyalty from their citizens while oppressing them and exploiting them. Ultimately, loyalty demands reciprocity. We can only be loyal to those who are loyal to us, and if we are not loyal to someone or their best interests, we have no business demanding loyalty and respect from them. We have to give what we want from others.

Loyalty is one of the glues that binds people and institutions together. If you want strong and stable relationships, there has to be mutual loyalty, including love and respect. When there are misunderstandings, loyalty smooths them over and seeks the best possible interpretations to avoid taking things personally and provocatively, when they are not meant so. Loyalty gets people working toward the same ends for the common good rather than being focused on personal agendas and letting the individual get ahead of what is best for everyone, letting our own interpretations get in the way of honest and open communication or an effective relationship. Where there is no loyalty, ultimately everything else will break down because people have to defend themselves instead of being able to trust others.

How do we build trust and loyalty? Often, we have to recognize that the biggest threats to trust and loyalty lie within ourselves, in our own fears and in the narratives we make of the actions and behavior of other people. Because there are no facts without interpretations, we conflate a given word or action with our interpretation of its meaning, react to the interpretation, and then read everything someone does through a skewed and incorrect light. Even where we may have to admit over and over again that we are wrong, unless we change that pattern of interpretation and response, by seeking accurate information before we act on our feelings and thoughts, the same pattern of disloyalty and treachery will continue over and over again. If we want to break the cycle, we have to become loyal people ourselves. And that is not easy work at all.

[1] http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/dog-stands-guard-over-deceased-owners-grave-for-six-years/