Breaking More than Candy Hearts

Valentine's Day is supposed to celebrate love. Love, while people say it is all around, is actually rooted in one other person. If you were decieved into thinking that you loved your friends and family, your country, your religion or Dancing With the Stars, then Valentine's Day is here to remind you that love is rooted in romance. One need only look to the commercials for jewlry, the advertisements for romantic dinners and even my gym has an offer to "bring your loved ONE for free" for Valentine's Day to see that instead of love Valentine's Day is celebrating romance.

It is fascinating to me that Valentine's Day focuses on romantic love-- perhaps the most fragile of all loving relationships. While people rarely quetion of their love of a cause or family, for some reason the love of a romantic partner does not hold the same power anymore. Of course there are people who love one another dearly, and have spent years in difficult circumstances to remain together and support one another. Yet, divorce, adultery, abandonment and other means of betraying romantic love run rampant in our society. Therefore, when we celebrate Valentine's Day it seems strange that we should force people to focus on the love of a romantic partner when it is the hardest love to face.

Would it not be a better statement to focus a day to celebrate love on the things that hold all of us together? The powerful emotion that makes us follow the elections with such passion, that commits us to God or humanity, and that makes us feel devoted to our family, friends and ourselves. Being single on Valentine's Day makes one feel loveless. By focusing on an aspect of love that excludes and depresses large portions of the population, Valentine's Day is breaking more than candy hearts. They are breaking the spirit of people that are blinded to the vast amount of love in their life by commercialized couples and diamond rings. It is hard to face a day that celebrates romantic love when you have none, but it is harder to feel like that means there is no love in your life at all.

Everyone has love for something in their lives, so celebrate that today. Whether it is family and friends or a political candidate or chocolate cake-- there is something we all look to when we need to love and the ability to do that is something worth celebrating. Even if it doesn't pay for dinner.

We're Just Not That Into You Lesson: Being alone on a day devoted to being together is not fun for anyone-- but it is important to remember that if you have one person you can cry to about it, or one phone call or email that you can send to vent, then you are not alone. Take this opportunity to celebrate more than romantic love, celebrate the power of devotion that we have to each other as a society, as friends and as family. There is so much love in this world that we need not waste its celebration on the need for one other person.