It's that time of the year where love is noticeably in the air. Walk into a store and you'll see a variety of Valentine's Day essentials from heart-shaped chocolate desserts and stuffed animals to love cards and flowers.

Many people who find themselves single, especially during this time, may crave the affection and companionship that comes with being in a romantic relationship. For someone who is currently single, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel the need at times to have a boyfriend.

Many of my friends have already found that special someone, and a part of me has always felt that I was behind or that I needed to involve myself in a secure, romantic relationship because a lot of people my age were already doing so. Overtime, I recognized the absurdity of such thinking. There isn't a right time, and feeling pressured to be in a relationship just because other people are isn't the ideal way to go. Even though relationships can be a great and fun part of life, being single is actually pretty amazing. It offers a certain kind of freedom that you can't have in a serious relationship with someone. For one, being single allows you to improve and focus on you.

A lot of people get into relationships, because it makes them feel good about themselves. They are highly dependent on how a specific person makes them feel through their words or actions, but remember human emotions and feelings are unpredictable, so dependency on someone to make you feel more confident or happier than you are independently is not a promising way of feeling good about yourself, especially in the long term.

On the contrary, being single gives you the opportunity to truly get to know yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, your interests, your goals and so much more without the distraction of a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Devoting time to your self-improvement is critical in recognizing your worth. As the common phrase goes, if you can't love yourself, how can you expect others to love you? You can also use being single as a time to be all deep and reflect on what it is that you want and want to do in your life.

Discover your purpose or work toward a certain goal that you may have been holding off. There's really no better time. With that, feed yourself with new knowledge. Since you don't have to share a lot of your time with a special someone, use it to learn something new or develop a new hobby.

The single life is ideal for investing in learning, because it demands the time and effort that you would have otherwise probably devoted to your relationship. In addition to caring for yourself, being single allows more room for alone time. Doing things solo sometimes is absolutely needed for relaxation and clarity.

All in all, being single definitely has its perks. The most important thing that you can do is put yourself first. Become the person that you genuinely want to be and figure out what you want and what you like. By dedicating time and energy to being the best version of yourself, the right person will come and recognize how great you really are.