Valentine's Day: Away from commercialization and towards an initiation of celebrating love daily
Valentine's Day: Do we really need that one particular day per year when everyone proclaims their love to each other? Shouldn't love be celebrated every single day?
Personally, I have never been a big believer in this day. Partly this is probably due to the fact that I have never had a reason to celebrate before. I never found myself back in a relationship that particular day. However, even having met somebody now - Valentine's Day is not any more interesting than before. Does this make me a Valentine's day grinch?
To be fair, there is nothing wrong with Valentine's day per se-a day celebrating love, what's wrong with that?
Unfortunately though and as a consequence of our materialistic society I think the day has moved away from its original purpose. Instead Valentine's day has become just another way for businesses to make money. Many people of the 21st century still largely believe that happiness is bound to materialism. Therefore, the day is commercialized in every single aspect. Everyone goes crazy about making restaurant reservations in time, buying his partner roses or chocolate and organizing something a little "extra". Why do we need artifacts to express our love towards somebody? I think it is because we unlearned the ability to express love purely through words or gestures. We think this simply isn't enough, even further: It almost seems to be expected of us to measure love and happiness by materialistic standards.
Businesses of courdse take advantage from this mindset. Anywhere you look they try to rip you off: In Lebanon for example, where I currently am, I've been told that the prizes for roses increase by as much as 300% around Valentine's day. Isn't that insane?
That's not to mention all the flowers that are cut off just for the sake of one single day of the year. According to the Society of American florists around 110 million roses are sold every year around Valentine's day. This is an overwhelming amount and the local flower industry cannot keep up with this demand. Therefore, the US needs to import a growing amount of its roses from South America from countries such as Columbia. I think its needless to explain that this causes an immense exhaustion of energy and CO2.
But it's not only the environmental aspect that discourages me from celebrating this day. I'm personally think that love should be celebrated and affection should be shown every single day throughout the year. Celebrating love shouldn't come down to one particular day. A concentration on one particular day most certainly leads to unrealistic expectations that are hard to be met. Maybe your partner forgot about Valentine's day because he was too busy thinking of other things - reason enough to spark a huge unneccesary argument. You're then inclined to think he doesn't love you, that he isn't serious about your relationship-yet he in fact just forgot to buy you roses. So what? Isn't it way more important to tell one another how much you appreciate each other throughout the year instead of pinning it down to materialistic things and experiences on Valentine's day?
But in my opinion it's never all black and white so I also try to look at it from a different angle. Maybe Valentine's day could also be seen as a reminder to generally tell another person more often that you appreciate him or her. I namely don't try to disencourage anyone from celebrating-I'm all about celebrating life and love. I just dare you to look at it from a different perspective. So maybe instead of buying your partner a bouquet of roses how about making him or her a "gift" every day of the year? I write gift in quotation marks because it could be misperceived as a materialistic gift however this would miss the point. I'm talking about "gift" as in "words of love and appreciation". And this shouldn't be restricted to your romantic relationships but this gift can go towards anyone you encounter in your daily life-a perfect stranger, your mother or a friend-it's your choice.
There is a German word called "Nächstenliebe" which I couldn't find an appropriate translation of but which perfectly brings to the point what I'm trying to explain here. A very literal tranlation of it would be "love to the person next to you". When was the last time you smiled at a random person in the street or helped someone out? Always keep in mind that as small a gesture as a smile can make someone's day. There is enough hate in this world so why don't we see this day as a start to show each other more love and respect in general? A kiss or smile that comes from the heart namely comes without a pricetag-anyone can afford it yet its priceless. And yet it's on you to use this valuable currency more often.
So let's take Valentine's day therefore as an initiation to practice more love in general-towards anyone and everyone.
Nächstenliebe.
Foto from Evan Kirby via Usplash
Sources:
https://www.proflowers.com/blog/how-many-roses-are-sold-valentines-day