What’s Love Got to Do with Valentine’s Day?

Feel like I need to rant a bit about Valentine’s day as a Hallmark and Hershey Holiday. Many people – especially those who are in “committed relationships” – feel pressure to spend money to make their partner feel loved. However, we need to show love to all people all the time. So I want to rant a bit about this capitalist holiday; but really try to tell the bigger story about why “Love is a Beautiful Thing” that grows as we share it. I have included my own selection of the top 40 Love Quotes.

These tend to be parts of several earlier BLOGs from MySpace. To start with there is some great advice about how to take it easier when it comes to love – go with the flow!! There are three important; yet simple principles that will significantly improve your love life – not just once a year – but every day!! After some inspiring quotes you will find my annual Valentine’s Day rant!!

Make loving easier

Note: this was an anonymous post I received on MySpace years ago.

Sometimes it is helpful to remember that love is about giving, not getting. Sometimes it is useful to remember that people are attracted by freedom and independence and driven away by neediness, moodiness and manipulation. And sometimes, one must remember that knowing when to let go gracefully is every bit as important as knowing when to take bold action forward. Love, physical attraction, falling in love, these can all be difficult trials, but they can also be the source of much joy and vibrancy in your life. If you will but learn a few basic principles and try to practice them in your life, these passages will be made easier.

Principle One. Do not give yourself away. Keep centered within yourself, glowing outwardly, even when you are in love. If you give pieces of yourself away, then you feel incomplete without the other person, and you are desperate to get attention from them, because that is the only way you can feel whole and complete. Instead, keep centered within yourself and glow. There is enough energy within you that you do not need to deplete what you have in order to give love.

Principle Two. Give without trying to get. It is possible to love without neediness and grasping. It is possible to care for someone and yet give them freedom and understanding, compassion and gentle caring from afar. It is possible to love someone without feeling that you own them or that they owe you something in return for this desperate love you have showered upon them. Again, just glow with the person you are and let that glow extend outward to bless others.

Principle Three. Do not have any expectations from a relationship; just let it flow and be, let it evolve and change, let it be. Your expectations are a heavy burden for others to carry. Lighten their load. Let each relationship be what it naturally wishes to be, not what you fantasize it could be. Drop your fantasies and just let life happen.

You are complete and whole. Another person’s love is a nice addition, but it is not necessary in order for you to live a fulfilling life. Another person’s romantic love is not necessary, wealth is not necessary, fame is certainly not necessary. A beautiful, fulfilling and peaceful life can be built by simply shining out with love and joy and sharing your gifts generously with others. Be the person you would like to see walking toward you, smiling and warm, generous and caring, fun-loving and full of life. That will attract love into your life!!

Amazing Quotes to Light Your Fire

Despite the problems in society we must hold out hope and keep sending out positive vibrations to the world. Here are 40 of the best quotes that I could find about this important topic. Clearly this is the most important subject in the world. What a surprise that we do not teach this directly in the universities, colleges, or schools, Unfortunately, what many religions promote as “love” is actually selfish and socially destructive (e.g., fundamentalism.) So here are some great thoughts on love (in no particular order.)

We all have so much to learn in this important area. Love truly is the spiritual energy of the universe that many people refer to as God. It is also the thing that almost everyone is always looking for. Remember that old country song “Lookin’ for Love in all the Wrong Places.” Hope that the quotes below help you find and keep more love in your life.

• Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. ~ Franklin P. Jones
• At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. ~ Plato
• Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. ~ Robert Frost
• If you have it [Love], you don’t need to have anything else, and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter much what else you have. ~ Sir James M. Barrie
• Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. ~ Henry Louis Mencken
• Love is a friendship set to music. ~ E. Joseph Cossman
• True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. ~ Erich Segal
• Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination. ~ Voltaire
• They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. ~ William Shakespeare
• Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life. ~ Lord Byron
• Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• This is my commandment, that ye love one another. ~ Jesus, In John 15:12
• Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet. ~ William Shakespeare
• I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
• Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. ~ Aristotle
• If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were. ~ Kahlil Gibran
• Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith. ~ Thomas Carlyle
• The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love. ~ Pearl Bailey
• Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world. ~ Wayne Dyer
• My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. ~ Winston Churchill
• The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller
• There is no remedy for love but to love more. ~ Thoreau
• If you would be loved, love and be lovable. ~ Benjamin Franklin
• Some love lasts a lifetime. True love lasts forever. ~ Unknown
• If you judge people, you have no time to love them. ~ Mother Teresa
• May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live. ~ Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
• A friend is someone who knows all about you, and loves you just the same. ~ Proverb
• We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it. ~ John Lennon
• Don’t forget to love yourself. ~ Soren Kierkegaard
• I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes — and the stars through his soul. ~ Victor Hugo
• I know that somewhere in the Universe exists my perfect soulmate — but looking for her is much more difficult than just staying at home and ordering another pizza. ~ Alf Whit
• I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox. ~ Woody Allen
• Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love. ~ Albert Einstein
• There is a place you can touch a woman that will drive her crazy. Her heart. ~ Melanie Griffith, Milk Money
• I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste. ~ David Bissonette
• Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand. ~ Unknown
• Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull. ~ H. L. Mencken
• What the world really needs is more love and less paper work. ~ Pearl Bailey
• You can’t buy love, but you can pay heavily for it. ~ Henny Youngman
• You can’t put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories. ~ Melanie Clark

Romantic Love acts Like Drug

Last year I heard an amazing segment on Sanjay Gupta’s House Call (CNN – Feb 10, 2007). He debunks the myths of romantic love. Conclusion we seek it and use it just like any other drug that gives us an immediate reward. They also remind us not to trust the feelings since the chemical reactions fade away quickly Anyhow, sorry to be the scrooge on Valentines Day – one of Hallmark and Hershey’s biggest cash cows!! I hate the message that permeates our society saying we need to have a romantic partner to be complete – sorry that is like saying you need booze, weed or some other drug.

Now that I have been single again for a few years I finally feel free from the craving to have “some soul mate complete me.” It is also clear now why monks don’t let themselves get hooked on the physical and emotional buzzes associated with romantic love. Here is the transcript (edited for readability).

GUPTA: It’s one of the most intense feelings a human being can experience — falling madly in love. As people celebrate Valentine’s Day, we celebrate by looking at some of the science behind these powerful emotion. But wait, is it an emotion? Or is it really a chemical reaction? We’re unlocking the mystery of your brain in love.

GUPTA (voice-over): It is said that falling in love is magical. It’s been universally described by people from all over the world in similar terms. Euphoria, exhilaration, elation, an intense craving for the person they love. But what exactly is love? Is it an emotion or something far more clinical? The goal, find out what’s happening in the brain when someone is intensely in love.

LUCY BROWN, NEUROSCIENTIST: When I started this study, I thought I was studying a very strong positive emotion. Now I have changed my mind the way I think about early stage romantic love, that it is a motivation. The person is a goal.

GUPTA: In fact, the part of the brain that lit up strongest was the reward, pleasure part of the brain. Not nearly as poetic as romantics would have thought. Turns out love is just another reward, much like chocolate or a drug for an addict.

ART ARON, PSYCHOLOGIST: What we think these data suggest is that everyone is focused intensely on getting this reward, being connected with having this person part of themselves.

GUPTA: And there are even more startling similarities between being madly in love and some forms of mental illness. Seratonin is 40 percent lower in people who had been madly in love for the previous six months. Another group of people with significantly low seratonin levels, those with OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder….

GUPTA: But how long can those kinds of feelings last?

HELEN FISHER, ANTHROPOLOGIST: One of the most outstanding characteristics of romantic love is that it’s not permanent. It doesn’t last forever, at least that very early stage doesn’t last forever, that pounding heart, the obsessive thinking, the craving, the intense motivation. In very good relationships, it will go down to a lower level.

GUPTA: Simply put, the burst of neurotransmitters, that dopamine drenched craze that leads to those feelings of mad love starts to wear out. So have I been ruining your Valentine’s Day by examining the magic of love under a microscope?

FISHER: You know, you can know every ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake. And you still sit down and eat that chocolate cake. And it’s wonderful in the same way you can know all of the ingredients of romantic love and still feel that passion.

END OF EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Capitalism and Consumerism Drive Guilt and Greed

You know, another thing on this Valentine’s Day, people will be celebrating by, you guessed it, shelling out some cash. Listen to a recent survey from a group I used to consult with. For the most part, valentine’s day is the ultimate Hallmark and Hershey holiday. Consumerism runs rampant as people are pressured to find that “perfect gift for their special someone. “ According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2007 Valentine’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch for NRF:

• The average consumer was predicted to spend $119.67 on Valentine’s Day – up from $100.89 last year (2006).
• 63.4% of consumers planned to celebrate the holiday.
• Total 2007 Valentine’s Day spending was expected to reach $16.90 billion.
• The average male was expected to spend $156.22, nearly double the $85.08 that the average female would spend.

On a final note – think how much American society has changed since the sixties. In terms of love, we really have lost ground. So many people today see love as something they have to get from outside. In fact, many businesses are trying to convince us to buy their stuff in order to have love. This is not what we all meant during the Summer of Love in 1967. At one point, the US even tried to show the world some love with our stamps. “Those were the days my friend, we thought they would never end.”