Did you assign a tremendous amount of importance to having the perfect Valentine’s Day last month? If not, do you feel like your partner placed outsized importance on this past Valentine’s Day? Or, have you ever had an incredibly awful Valentine’s Day despite all of your planning and best efforts? If you answered in the affirmative to any of those questions, then I implore you to keep reading.
Full disclosure: I have never been a big supporter of any commercialized holiday, including Valentine’s Day. I take that position because I see Valentine’s Day for what it really is. It is a day for businesses to generate seasonal revenue based on an artificial creation that pressures everyone in society to celebrate by gifting roses, cards, candy, etc. I realize this point of view may sound cynical, so allow me to drill down further on my perspective.
For example, Mother’s Day is another commercialized holiday that troubles me. I love my mother dearly as she is the person that brought me into this word, provided unconditional love and support, and cheered me on my entire life. Therefore, I have always made an effort to express my gratitude and love for her every opportunity that is presented, especially now that she has crossed over into her golden years.
Stated another way, I do not need a commercially concocted day to celebrate her because I make a conscious effort to celebrate her every day. The commercialized message conveying that “you need to show your love and appreciation for your mother on this specific day in May” just seems incredibly misguided. By no means am I claiming to be perfect in how often I express appreciation for my mother. However, I do know that I do not need societal pressure forced upon me to celebrate her on one specific day per year as that implicitly suggests that dedicating one day is enough and appropriate.
For the vast majority of my life, I have chosen to adopt the perspective that “[t]he grass is greener where you water it,” as once eloquently stated by Neil Barringham. When we choose to live our lives with that perspective, inherently we do not place so much importance on one single day because we understand that the accumulation of days tending to the metaphorical grass fosters successful relationships. So, when we find ourselves assigning too much importance and feeling immense pressure on artificially created holidays, we should pause and inquire with ourselves as to why we are assigning so much importance to that specific day. The answer to that inquiry will often yield that it is because we did not put forth the effort during the preceding 364 days.
If you are a person that enjoys celebrating Valentine’s Day, then by all means have at it. The purpose of this article is not to offend you or to persuade you that you should not celebrate any commercialized days. With that said, now that the proverbial “month of love” has passed us by, some of us may be evaluating our romantic relationships based on what has recently transpired. If you find yourself in that predicament, then I encourage you to embrace the perspective that a relationship should not be evaluated in a vacuum. The vacuum being whether your partner knocked the ball out of the park on Valentine’s Day.
Relationships require continuous effort, mutuality, commitment, vulnerability, communication, growth, etc., to make them successful. So, if you are or were in a relationship that lacked those essential characteristics during the preceding 364 days to Valentine’s Day, then an absolutely amazing Valentine’s Day, or even an atrocious one, should not be the defining moment of the relationship because the grass was probably not green when Valentine’s Day arrived. The grass was most likely dead in that case, so putting any amount of water on the dirt for one “special day” will still only result in mud.
Based on the foregoing, the million-dollar question presents itself: what can we do to eliminate the pressure of feeling the need to have a storybook Valentine’s Day? The answer is simple. Treat every day like it is Valentine’s Day. You do not need a designated day to give your partner roses, a card, candy, or to whisper sweet nothings in their ear. You can express your love and appreciation at any time because you are willing and able to do so.
Furthermore, you do not have to spend money to make your partner feel special either. One thing I have always enjoyed throughout my life has been to write and then gift poems to the woman that I was dating/in a relationship with at that time. My thoughtfully crafted poems always resulted in a more appreciative reaction when compared to gifting any tangible item purchased at a store because the poems were specific to her, our relationship, our experiences, etc. As an added bonus, the emotions and feelings evoked while reading each poem will last for a lifetime because people will always remember the way you made them feel.
Now if you do not feel comfortable writing poems, then all hope is not lost. We frequently overlook how easy and fun it can be to dedicate some time to ponder the ways that we can creatively express our love and appreciation for our significant other. More often than not, it is the personalized thought, effort, and touch that resonate exponentially more than the actual expression itself. Therefore, we need to exercise more personalized thought, effort, and touch on a consistent basis if we desire lush, green grass in our relationships.
As for Valentine’s Day celebrations, I almost never genuinely enjoy dining out at a fancy restaurant on that night since the restaurants are always overcrowded, noisy, and the servers are stressed beyond belief. In addition, the menu prices are usually not commensurate with the quality of the food and experience on Valentine’s Day night. Therefore, I prefer to spend a quiet night at home that results in cooking an amazing meal together since my significant other and I are fully capable of dining out any night of the week. We both do not feel succumbed to the pressure to spend the night in a jam-packed restaurant, which will probably not be able to seat us at our reservation time anyway even though it was made several weeks ago, because we water our metaphorical grass enthusiastically throughout the year.
So, if you find yourself disappointed that your recent Valentine’s Day did not go as expected, then I invite you to candidly evaluate your relationship by placing significant emphasis on the preceding 364 days so you can properly ascertain whether your grass is being appropriately watered. This evaluation may just help alleviate the overwhelming feelings that are caused by the commercially pressurized expectation that your Valentine’s Day had to be perfect with your partner.