Valentine’s Day — Choosing to Love
Good morning, and happy Valentine’s Day!
If you’re in a committed relationship right now—married or otherwise—I hope you get showered with gifts and praise and sweets and all that wonderful stuff from your significant other.
If you’re single, please remember that it’s not the end of the world, and you’re not “less of a person” because you don’t currently have someone you’re in love with.
Either way, I want to encourage all of you today with a simple message this morning:
I was reading an article earlier this week on Medium (online publishing platform), and the author made an amazing distinction that I want to reiterate today, as I think it would be a fitting message for Valentine’s Day.
Whenever people “fall in love,” what they’re really saying is that they have become absolutely and totally infatuated with another human being. While that’s amazing, and the rush of chemicals inside one’s body makes them practically immune against anything life can throw at them at the moment, it doesn’t usually last very long.
After the period of infatuation fades (at least temporarily), what people actually want is to love and be loved unconditionally—unconditionally meaning that whether somebody FEELS like loving you or not, they choose to love you regardless.
Although I’ve never dated anyone, I can say that I’ve had a long-term relationship with humanity and can say a few things about love.
Although every now and then I might have a brief moment of infatuation with humanity as I see all the good and amazing and wonderful potential of people to do good, I would never say that I’m “in love with” humanity, as that’d be lying 99.5% of the time.
However, I will say that I do love humanity, not because I’m infatuated with it, but because I make the conscious effort to love it despite its obvious failures, seemingly in-built problems, and its countless issues—let’s be honest, humanity’s messy, and loving it ain’t easy.
The people around you will sometimes disappoint you; the ones you count on can sometimes let you down, and you might not always “feel” like you’re being loved, which means you might not want to love them either.
If we want to make the world a better place, both for ourselves and for those around us, I say we embrace unconditional love and make the conscious effort to love those around us, whether we feel like it or not.
Especially since it’s Valentine’s Day, let’s choose to love.
I hope this message encourages you; God bless you, and have an amazing rest of your day!
— David
