Love is in the air today. However; this quasi holiday needs a facelift. A large number of people still persistently hold to the illusion of romantic love. The Hallmark® Channel provides endless hours of sappy “happy ever after” movies and romantic novels are sold to countless romantics who choose to live in this imaginary world. Walking through the grocery store I see men with bouquets of flowers in their arms, hovered over the greeting card section, looking for that perfect card that will contain the words he himself cannot say to his beloved. Women will often allow themselves to be deeply hurt if their husband or boyfriend forgets to honor them on this day or on their birthday. Why do we place so much importance on a day?
True love is spontaneous and imaginative and most importantly, it happens in the moment. We seem to want to regulate all the parts of our lives into a space on our calendar where it will fit nicely; but love lives outside the box that we try to trap it in. Romantic love can be a wonderful thing as long as we know that all things must pass. As soon as we place expectations or perimeters around it, it is lost. We need to remember that romantic love is a tiny sliver of the whole of LOVE, which is the driving force and the focal point of the entire universe. We try to make it small and manipulate it to fit only in our personal lives, but love is so much bigger than what we can perceive it to be.
When I was a youngster in grade school we used to have to decorate shoe boxes and we were expected to put a valentine into every classmate’s shoe box. I don’t know what they do in schools these days, but I am hoping they have outgrown this silly, corny, ridiculous tradition. Let’s use this day instead, to teach children about universal love. Let’s teach them about acceptance and non-judgement and show them how to be conduits of love. Instead of hearts, they could envision themselves as lighthouses. The light of love can then shine from them into the world. Imagine a world where the love within each and every one of us shone. Would our collective light be as bright as our own sun?
