"When you grow up," the wind whispered in the young girl‘s ear, "you‘ll meet your soul mate－the one with whom you can share your life and experience ecstatic, joyful love. You will find yourselves entwined as one in conjugal bliss."
"How will I know who it is?" the little girl questioned. " How will I find the right one?"
"Oh, don‘t worry," said the wind reassuringly. "Destiny dictates the meeting of your soul mates. You will meet the one who is right and you will live happily ever after."
The idea that there is just one special person for me－my soul mate－comes from an alleged altercation between the human race and the Greek god Zeus. According to Greek mythology, we human originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. Because Zeus feared that the authority of the gods might be compromised by this race of beings, he decided to split each person in half, condemning us to spend the rest of our lives wandering unrequited until we find the half we were separated from －our lost soul mate. It was thought that our undying pursuit of perfect love is the result of Zeus‘s scheme to keep us busy － far away from meddling in the domain of the gods.
According to this account, a person‘s soul mate is the one-and-only other half of one‘s soul－we would always be less happy with any other person. today millions based their hope of marital bliss entirely on the Zeus account.
If this is true, Then when a relationship fails, it isn‘t that we have done wrong or failed to do what is right, it is that we have not found Mr. or Mrs. Right. Hence, when relationship failure comes, the best we mere mortals can do is cut our losses and return to our quest for the one who, once found, will cause us to live happily ever after.
But come on, Doesn‘t the idea that we were once two-faced, four-armed, and four-legged beings who got split by a paranoid Greek god come across as just a little crazy? And aren‘t thoughts founded in a mythical story really just...myth? Yet this idea has been successfully universalized; most people today hold to this view, even the non-Zeus followers.
“等你长大以后，”风在小女孩儿的耳边低语，“你将会遇到自己的灵魂伴侣－那个你能够与之分享生命，拥有激情、喜乐的爱情的人，那时候，你就会发现你们会合为一体，享受完美的婚姻祝福。“
”我怎么知道那个人是谁？“小女孩问，”我怎么找到那个对的人？“
”别担心，“风确定地说，”这是命中注定的，你和你的灵魂伴侣，你会遇到真命天子，从此以后你们就幸福地生活在一起。“
”人人都有唯一伴侣－灵魂伴侣”，这个观念来自希腊神话，人类与主神宙斯相争，神话说，我们人类本来有四个胳膊、四条腿、一个头但是两张脸，因为宙斯担心人类会削弱诸神的权威，于是把每个人都从中间劈成两半，以致人类不得不倾其余生四处茫然地游荡，直到找到自己失去的另一半－灵魂伴侣。人类永无止境地追求完美爱情就是宙斯的计划，让我们忙碌一生，永远无法干扰诸神的领域。
按照这种解释，灵魂伴侣就是一个人一生中唯一的一个，是他灵魂的另一半－除他以外，我们跟任何人在一起都不够幸福，今天，成千上万的人把自己幸福婚姻的基础完全建立在这一基础上。
如果这是真的，当一段恋爱失败的时候，不是我们做错了什么或者有什么事没做对，而是因为我们没有找到自己的真命天子／女，因此，一旦失败，对我们这些凡人来说，最好就是止损，再次出发去寻找那个一旦找到就会快乐幸福到永远的那位－灵魂伴侣。
可是，真是如此吗？这个所谓的我们曾是四手四脚两张脸一个头的生物，被一个偏执狂的希腊神祗一分为二的故事听起来是不是太不可思议了？一个建立在神话基础上的想法不也就是一个......迷思吗？然而这却在我们的世界广为流传，大部分人－即使不相信宙斯，却仍然持有这个观念。