Happy Valentine's Day

Sharing some sentiments

Credit: Kan Khem

To all of you in our Steady community: We wish you a healthy and happy Valentine’s Day. 

We offer this sentiment in keeping with the purest expression of the day — a moment of reflection and appreciation when we pause to tell those we care about why they are special to us. 

Well, you are special to us. Very special. And we hope that this community has become one where you feel love and support from others who gather here in a spirit of empathy, curiosity, and recognition. 

The world would be a better place if we all did a better job of letting those we care about know our feelings on a daily basis. Words carry a significant impact, to hurt but also to heal. We can nurture the latter through even modest gestures — a small note, a short call, a brief visit. We can let people know, especially those who are hurting, that there are others out there thinking of them and pulling for them. 

We all have moments of uncertainty and loneliness. Pain is unfortunately an inextricable part of the human experience. But so too are joy and hope, which we can nurture by appreciating and acknowledging our common humanity. 

Perhaps Valentine’s Day should be less an occasion to jam as much thankfulness as possible into one day and more a time to renew our determination to be better about sharing our feelings. It could become an inspiration for its own form of new year’s resolutions, except ones less focused on self-improvement and more on how we might improve the lives of others. 

To be sure, Valentine’s Day has become a day of hearts, roses, candy, and all things red, plush, and shiny. These have their place, and we honor those of you who circle this day on your yearly calendars for can’t-miss celebrations. We also acknowledge that others of you might bemoan the commercialism and over-the-top nature of what today has become. That is fair. 

But let us leave behind the modern manifestation of Valentine’s Day and get to its deeper essence. February 14 is the middle of our shortest month. Winter is now more behind us than before us. Our days are still short, and often gray and cold. But we are on a path where they will get longer, warmer, and more colorful. The allure of spring no longer feels so distant. 

This is therefore a time of hope, and nothing fuels hope more than love. 

In past eras, Valentine's Day was often treated in our schools as a popularity contest. The children who were already the most well liked got the most cards. Now, many schools have instituted rules whereby students can either give cards to all the students in their class or no cards at all. 

There are undoubtedly some who criticize this practice as another manifestation of sensitivity training run amok, the equivalent of trophies given for just participating. But there was something inherently cruel about the way things used to be done. It is those who are the most isolated or overlooked who could use a valentine the most. 

Love shouldn’t be measured in a volume of recognition. And it isn’t a zero-sum game. It is helpful to remember the lyrics of the children’s song “Love is Something” from folk musician Malvina Reynolds:

“Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.”

Let us use this Valentine’s Day to remind each other and ourselves about the myriad benefits that come from being expansive in our love and support.

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