I'm looking forward to Valentine's Day this year. Mostly due to the fact that I'm a hopeless romantic so I secretly enjoy mushy holidays like this, but also because I think I'm finally understanding what it all means.
A little while ago, I was curious and looked up the history of Valentine's Day. Some of it was kind of dark, not gonna lie, but one legend stood out to me. This particular legend speaks of a priest who was arrested and jailed for performing illegal marriages. While in jail, he met and fell in love with the warden's daughter but sadly, he was sentenced to be executed. However, before his execution, he wrote her a letter signed "from your Valentine."
Valentine's Day today is, fortunately, not as gruesome and dramatic as this legend suggests but it hit me upon reading this that there is something symbolic to be drawn from this story. Thankfully, most of us (hopefully all of us) do not have to worry about being executed. However, we do have the stress and daily grind of life to deal with. With all this constant mess we surrounding us in life, it's easy to forget about the people we love. Slowly but surely we start taking them for granted and putting their feelings more and more on the back burner of our mind.
That's why Valentine's Day is so great. It's a day for people to pause and reflect on whether they are showing important people in their lives that they love, care about and appreciate them. This is something that can't be done by throwing flowers and chocolate at someone. Those things are nice, but if they come with no thought, they are useless. Giving someone flowers one day out of the year will not make them feel loved. Instead, it's better to use Valentine's Day as a yearly checkup to reflect on how much selfless love and appreciation you give to people in your life who truly deserve it.
