Valentine’s day is upon us, once again. At some point in your life you look forward to it and at another point you dread it and at yet another point you are apathetic. What typically influences which emotion you feel is not only your relationship status at the time but also the status of your happiness within the relationship. The sobering reality is that most of your feelings are your responsibility, not that of another.
Happiness and love are two of the longest pondered areas that have yet to be fully answered. Sure, most have their interpretations but how many times have these self-defined constructs turned out to be far from what was originally hoped? The problem is that like love, happiness when derived from another is merely a byproduct of our need to be loved.
Most think of how another will fit with us or whether they will be faithful or supporting or something. Many times what one looks for in the next spouse is correlated to what they did or didn't have with a previous one. Yet another example of how our psyche (its need to be loved, happy, and sometimes more importantly protected) influences our personal decisions and is potentially, maladaptively shaped by our previous ones.
All in all what this has to do with Valentine’s day is that our first and foremost responsibility is to love ourselves. When you learn to unconditionally love yourself while always striving for personal improvement, you can finally see who you needed all along to be happy and feel loved, yourself. Then your psyche can go from the full time job of protecting your ego to being able to reach its miraculous potential. Fall in love with yourself and others will fall in love with you as well. When you love yourself they way you should, you have plenty to share instead of needing it to come from elsewhere.
In the big picture, Valentine’s day is irrelevant. When you learn to love yourself, you will feel this love every day. As stated earlier, you are responsible for your feelings but the more you get to know about love within yourself and as you share true love with others, you realize it is more than just a feeling. It is a way of life, an experience, and ultimately a choice. Choose to love yourself and choose to improve your life.
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