I’m standing outside, smoking a cigarette with my new friend. I’m thinking about Valentine’s Day, and how I’m going to avoid it this year. I’m thinking about how to write a column about February 14, something meaningful.
Too light and it’s a fluff piece, too dark and analytical and it’s depressing. As such, since I am a person who is not on friendly terms with Valentine’s Day, I find myself having a bit of a problem.
On the one hand there is the part of me that wants to say that Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love, respect, intimacy and passion. Yet on the other hand, a voice cries out, “Yeah, a celebration for someone else.”
I suppose then the question is, how does one fight a yearly reminder of what it’s like to be lonely, while still appreciating the meaning of Valentine’s Day? Can one who is lonely come to appreciate all the possibilities of celebrating love while not experiencing them?
In the end, it really boils down to one question: if today you knew you would never experience love again, or never experience it at all (as the case may be) could you learn to be content to celebrate the happiness of others, and would that be enough? And if it is possible, how does one get to that point?
Most people would say, “No.” Of those who would say, “Yes” most really haven’t thought the idea through. This naturally brings up other questions like: What is love?
What does it mean to be happy or content?
To think I have the answers would be presumptuous of me at best.
But for the purpose of discussion let us define love in the ideological sense: feelings and actions that reflect the respect, trust and acceptance, felt for another person.
To have those feelings and actions returned is how we shall define being “in love” or “in a relationship.” Relationship is here defined as interaction between two people requiring respect, trust and acceptance.
To be “content” is to have an abiding satisfaction with, in this case, life. It is to have a feeling that one has accomplished as much as one can (or wishes to) in a given situation, and is not concerned for what one has not, or perhaps cannot, achieve.
“Happiness” is defined by Dictionary.com as being “well adapted, joyful,” or, at the risk of being redundant, to be content in one’s contentment.
Is it possible then to be “content” with a life where one feels love, but is not “in a relationship?”
Many who say they are now content to not be “in a relationship” are instead satisfied with the idea of potential love. The idea of love returned by someone in the future. They are not content to be without love, merely content to be with out love for NOW.
But if the prospect of that future love is taken away, life becomes a grim and fruitless task. For what then do we aspire?
If we are not loved by others, can life be satisfactory? To put it directly, No.
Life cannot be satisfactory without being loved because love is an integral part of security, faith, identity, confidence, understanding, sympathy, empathy and virtually all other types of positive human emotional interaction. Without love there is nothing, but what then does that mean?
It means that those who are not loved have nothing to live for.
But fear not, for there are very few (if any) who could honestly say that there is not someone who loves them, and for those who do, there is but one recourse: hope.
Hope is here defined as confidence in possibility. Thus for those of us who are not “in love” there is “hope.”
There is hope because there is no one who can rightfully say that they KNOW that they will never experience love again, or that they will never get a first experience of having love returned, because no one knows the future for a fact.
Part of hope, love and faith is uncertainty. Thus, true experiences of these feelings are quite valuable.
For everything that has value, everything worth having in life, comes with a risk.
Love is a risk. We take our secrets, our pride, and our emotions and trust that someone will accept us flaws and all.
Faith is a risk. It requires us to believe that something is true, without having a good reason, or any reason at all.
Hope is a risk. It requires us to bet everything on the future, on an unknown possibility, dreaming that everything balances out in the end. These emotions, if they are true and earnest, are expensive (as is everything in life worth having) and require us to be vulnerable.
One cannot have love until one is completely honest. One cannot have faith if one has “reservations.” And one cannot have hope, if one is too caught up in the bitterness of the present reality.
Therefore, if two people really are “in love,” be thankful, be happy for they have taken the risks to have it.
If a person has real faith, regardless of who or what it is in, praise that person, for they have the courage to believe in that which, by definition cannot be proven or tested for fact.
If someone has hope, be kind to him or her, for they risk the security of what they know, for belief in what may be.
All these things are necessary to have a “life well lived.”
Yet, to have faith, hope and love, does not guarantee success. It is possible to risk and lose, but to paraphrase a famous poet, “it is better to risk and lose than never to have risked at all.”
For if we fail, we can at least console ourselves with the thought that we were brave enough to risk. For if we never risk, we never fail, but neither do we ever succeed.
Thus, in a way, even if one cannot participate in Valentine’s Day, one can appreciate it.
If one is not experiencing “love” now, then hope. For without love, there is only faith and hope.
Without faith there is no possibility beyond the self, and without hope there is no future to look forward to.
For in the end, Valentine’s Day is really just an opportunity to celebrate those who have taken the risks to have the greatest things in life, and for those who take the risks to rejoice in their gambles, win or lose.
Valentine’s Day is not just about candy, roses, poetry, and romance. It’s about taking a chance on something we can never be sure of. Indeed, all we can be sure of is that life is worth the risk, and failure is merely an invitation to try again.

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