Love is a blessed feeling, adorned by many and feared by a few. The power it gives you, the energy and courage to overstep the highest adversities, are without doubt worth wishing and fighting for.
If you are a romantic girl at heart, eager to taste those glazed chocolate truffles and to smell the sweet rose infused candles, you probably cannot wait to get to February 14th. From imagining romantic scenery, to preparing your whimsical dress, this is definitely a holiday for you.
But what if you are that girl who just can’t understand all the hype around Valentine’s Day and who would rather stay at home and enjoy an episode of her favorite Netflix show (*alone*) and to contemplate about how good that salted caramel bag of pop-corn was…
No matter what category you may fall under, there is always a reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day, whether it is just by yourself, surrounded by your family or with your significant other.
So, hear me out!
Here is my list of reasons why you should be celebrating Valentine’s Day this year:
Love Life
Life is given to us to be lived and to be treasured.
I know there are a lot of clichés out there being broadcast into the Universe, telling you that everything is going to be fine and no matter what, you should be happy.
Well, I disagree and let me explain why. I do not believe that everything is going to be okay for everyone.
Things may not go as planned for you as you are heading into one direction, and you may have people around you telling you to keep on going because everything will fall into place eventually. No. This is not going to happen, unless you really want it to happen and you are willing to put the necessary work into it.
On the other hand, if you do not want to keep on running the race till you get to your presumably targeted goal, it will not feel like everything is going to be ok. From here on, you have two possible options: you either make your own path, through passion and commitment, and dedicate a lot more energy than you would have had to invest if you were to pursue your initial path, or you decide that you should have never left the road you were going on and get back on the initial track.
Either way, there are going to be bumps that make it seem like climbing the Kilimanjaro would feel like a sunny walk in the park. There are times when even giving up would take far more energy than you have left to spear.
But throughout all of these bouncing points, you have to remain grateful. Grateful that you even get to experience those feelings of uncertainty, ambiguity and lack of energy.
Do not get me wrong. I am not a fan of those feelings either, but just know that there are people who would give everything they own to enjoy one more moment doing whatever thing it may be on this Earth, only if they were able to.
I know that you may be reading this and be thinking “I am sick of hearing the same old talk about gratefulness when the Universe is against me”. You may be feeling like you are not responsible for the bad luck you keep on receiving. And I just want to say that I completely understand you. I, myself, believe that sometimes we are not responsible for the bad things that happen to us and that there are circumstances that are just out of our personal capacity to overcome.
But even if I believe these things, I think that we owe it to ourselves to see the beauty in the small things. I will not come here and give you a speech about positivity (that you had already heard of way too many times by now), nor will I say that everything around us is beautiful. However, if you look close and careful enough, once in a while, there is fairy dust sprinkled all around us.
You can find beauty in the blossoming cherry flowers, in the sound of the rushing crystal clear river streaming down the valley. You can discover the most marvelous thinking ideas if you just observe and question everything around you. Look at the pigeon trying to impress his pair, look at the wind that swipes away the autumn leaves making you contemplate on life’s cycles and their meaning.
Your mind should never be empty of substance, of desire to learn more about the world that surrounds us and of the people that look up to us. Your mind should never be in that place where it is not interested in knowing itself.
There is something to be fixed and something to be appreciated in every one of us.
So love yourself, love the infinitely small puzzle pieces from this great game that we call “Life” and let yourself be loved by others. There is no point in imagining a world without love.
Would you want to live in such a world?
Love others
How many times you have come to wonder what would you have done if X person hadn’t been there to support you or to embrace your individuality and ideas? Would you have come this far? If yes, in how many more time units would that have been?
No matter how talented, gifted and spectacular an individual may be, the stars will not always shine for him. That is when he needs a guiding ray of light to show him there is hope and to crack open through the shell of self pity, self-indulgence and fearfulness. Of course, you may encounter people who will only help you just so they could ask something in return later, but, once in a blue moon, someone selfless will guide you far ahead. In a world with so many self-centered people, it is hard enough to find an honest one, let alone one that would be willing to teach you to fly through the thick fog of doubts and concerns.
Some choose to name these eventful encounters as “luck” or “coincidence”, some call them “fate”, some just call them “good people” and some choose to pretend it never happened. It is up to you to decide the name you offer to these people. But I would always say to remind yourself what they mean to you and to imagine how would you have turned out to be if they were not to come across your path.
I would say to thank them. Thank them for the well wishes, for the good (and bad) advice they gave you, because you would not have been able to enjoy life the way you do now if they were not there to balance you through the process. Thank them for the patience they had with when they found you and thank them for letting you have an impact on them. The interaction was mutual and the touch of your personalities was mutual, also.
Love thyself
How many more ideas do you have left and how many more people you need to meet in order for your dreams to become real?
How many people have you met that are bored with themselves? How many people have you met that have an interest in anything other than TV shows and mobile apps? Are you one of them?
Often times I think there are too many talks about dreams, goals and aspirations. People have come to search for a dream just because it is cool to do so, just because their role model tells them to or just because they would feel left out in a conversation if they do not come up with some intimidating dream of their own. And later on, they go back to their dark corner of dust and hopelessness that exists in the back of their mind and stay there until they crawl out only when needed.
You may be stuck in a phase of emotional stillness or you may think you are not good enough or qualified enough to dream about something.
The only reason it is SOMETIMES ok to not have dreams and aspirations is because you KNOW you are not in touch with yourself and with your desires.
You may first have to dream about having a dream, before you actually plunge into the eternal struggle of completing the dream. You not only have to fight for your dream to become real, but you also have to fight to find one suitable for you. And I mean it in the most positive way. The dream you may have is to become someone who doesn’t reflect your true self, soul and mind.
Know yourself in order to identify your dream. Work on yourself in order to advance to that stage where you will be able to recognize your flaws and to, consciously, be willing to mold them into something better.
A dream is a dream only if you wish for it hard enough, fight for it like it would never happen otherwise and if you adjust your temper in order to lift yourself high enough to catch it.
So, in other words…you are the dream. Envision yourself as the most valuable dream you will ever fantasize about and then you will see how hard and how much you are willing to fight for yourself.
Don’t ask others to fight for you if you don’t put in the effort for yourself either. Expect from others to judge you like they know you, to talk in front of you like they are your best friends and to disrespect you like their worst enemy when you are not around them. But remember to be disciplined and to not let yourself be bothered from reaching your potential because of teenage-like drama and nonsense behavior of others’.
I would say to you to celebrate this Valentine’s Day whether you are single or not. Learn not to be bored with yourself. Always discover new things to do, ideas to explore and feelings to process. It is only then when you will feel comfortable enough with yourself to not feel alone when celebrating a love based holiday.
What words would you say on Valentine’s Day if you were to meet yourself?