As shocking as it may sound to most of you, I refuse to celebrate Valentine’s Day. While I know this may seem odd to everyone, as my #1 intention is to promote and encourage love; I strongly believe Valentine’s Day does the exact opposite for the majority. The last Valentine’s Day I remember celebrating was when I was 16. My boyfriend then and I, fell victim to the day where hallmark tries to come out the the red by persuading us all to purchase keepsakes, chocolates, and cards filled with poetry written by someone else. We found ourselves competing with our friends around us and what gifts they purchased and gave, as well as their ongoing self competition with gifts from the years before. Gifts which are all temporary and insignificant come the next year around, as well as the feelings from the temporary increase in dopamine, are all things that are usually superseded by another memory of love or joy from another day of the year which is not on a significant holiday the government recognizes. Honestly, how many of us really have one of our core memories or significant happy moments that we will NEVER forget landing on this holiday? There are a few, but for most, I guarantee they’ve had at least one year where they’ve been alone and faced the “love holiday” with grief. That is the year that will stick out for them, if any.

I’ve  watched over the years, as friends without significant others became saddened and lonely, even though one day before, they were just as content being single. Or at least they didn’t have their noses rubbed in their singlehood. I realized that this day does nothing more than cause people to judge themselves and others by material gifts and relationship status. It actually makes me sick and so I’ve sobered up since then and promote vetoing this one holiday in particular. Why celebrate a day where our true authentic self is backed up against a wall, forced into recognizing our current love position and to bask it in flowers and chocolates? Valentine’s day is nothing more than a consumer holiday carried along by the Catholic religion who, like it or not, has had plenty of experience with ill natured traditions that are often celebrated beyond their time. Meanwhile, we may not feel very loving that day, or maybe we do, but we also feel threatened by the amount that we use to show it with. And on top of that, our good friends in the single pool, are sulking and being saddened by their label which we did not give them, nor did we try to highlight by simply giving into the forced buying frenzy.

Valentine’s day is supposed to be a day of celebrating Love. At least that is what it was meant to grow into despite it’s haphazard history. However, a forced day of Love, defined by consumerism, hardly seems like the love we want to establish here. I believe that, before love, we all need to be more celebratory of authenticity. Authenticity is the thing that stretches deep into our being, our real, true and pure self. It uncovers all of our ugly, dark truths and exposes all of our hatred, fears and gaping wounds. Without authenticity, love and acceptance are just words and a mere façade. We cannot love or accept ourselves if we aren’t willing to love and accept the broken parts too. Even the parts that are single on the LOVE holiday. To be authentic, one must first learn about accepting themselves for who they are and where they’ve been. After, they must then be able to appreciate and respect that they are no longer labeled by whatever they accept, but by the choices they make to being that or something different. Once we can look in the mirror and say to ourselves, THIS or THAT is who I was yesterday, but I no longer wish to be, so I will change that for today, we cannot truly love ourselves. Just because we, or society, gives us a label, it doesn’t make it true until death do us part. Any label we seek, any goal we set our mind to, can be our own, but only with the ability to set forth and be authentic while working toward manifesting them. Traditions are simply something we hand down from generation to generation, not necessarily of any authority. Let us change the consumer holiday and the belief that we are only something if we are “someone” to another person.

Up until now, I have practiced what my upbringing, society, and labels have taught me to be true. I have given into the consumerism of holidays and tradition of unkindness, lest a person be truly significant to me.

From now on, I will promote loving oneself and others through authentically chasing my dreams and encouraging others to chase their own, while putting in the work to accomplish the end goal. I will only practice what I believe to be true, I will question myself and others when it comes to labeling and make sure that I am giving everyone a fair opportunity for growth and self awareness for love.