| Emotional
Intelligence | Stevehein.com Valentines Day - 2006 Today is Valentines Day. Or so it is called by many around the world. I am going to take a few minutes to think about what it means to me. Since I am with Laura right now, my thoughts turn to her. It's been a very rocky relationship. Many times I've been close to saying "I've had enough." Many times I've been close to saying something sarcastic and hurtful. Like the other day when I was talking about looking for hotels that might want their web pages translated to English and she made a face and said "Here?" I thought of saying something sarcastic like, "No, in Tokyo." I really believe that love is important. I've written about it a little on my love page. But I don't write about it much and don't think about it much. Not many people do really. And not many will give it much thought today either. Most people will do what everyone else does in their culture. Buy chocolate, cards, flowers etc. Maybe even buy jewelry, which serves almost no constructive purpose at all in society and is only a materialistic symbol of love. A long time ago I realized that it was better to have love than a wedding ring, which is supposed to be a symbol of love. In other words it is better to have something itself than a symbol of it. If you've been reading my site lately you know that Laura is very insecure. Marriage, to her, equates to security. But I know that love offers more security than marriage. I don't have to marry Laura to want to help her, to want to protect her from suffering. Marriages are no guarantee. Love may not be a guarantee either, but it is worth more than a piece of paper. But as I have written about before, society doesn't really value love. It values the piece of paper. The legal document. Which leads me back to Valentines Day. What do we value really? Love, romance? Or the material things associated with love and romance? And I haven't even mentioned sex yet. I am sure there are lots of people who are going to spend money to buy some sexy nighties from Victoria Secret. And I am sure a lot of corporations are using our instinctive need for sex to try to sell their products. I am going to try to help Laura feel loved today. I will spend some money on some things I might not do otherwise, but one thing I like about Laura, one of the things which adds to my feelings of love for her, is that materialistic things are less important to her than the love itself. So now she just came in and gave me a hug and a kiss. I feel lucky to have her. I forget, sometimes, how hard it was to find her. And how lonely I will most probably feel if we separate. But I don't want my fear of loneliness to be the main reason we are together. I want it to be love. I wrote a long time ago that love is important to her. Because of her insecure past and the abuse she suffered, it is more important to her to feel loved. This is partly to help her feel less afraid of abandonment, but partly also because we all need to feel special to at least one person. Preferably we would feel special in our homes as we are growing up. But she didn't feel very special and I didn't either. I did get a lot of special treatment since I was the "baby", and because my mother tried to fill many of her emotional needs through me, and to do that she had to give me the illusion at least that I was special. I feel resentful about this now, but that resentment is toxic and I know it. So I will make a conscious effort to focus on loving thoughts and loving actions today. And hopefully not just today. But in some ways, though the day has been commercialized like every other holiday, I agree it is helpful to have a day reserved to remind us of the importance of love. Maybe it would be helpful to have one a week even, if it didn't have religious associations, like Sunday for so many people, and if it were not just another day to sell products. I'd really like to help create a new society. I'd like to be remembered when I die as someone who was sensitive, romantic and who offered many people a lot of love. I've been criticized for telling teenagers that I love them, but I have never found a better word for what I feel or for what they need to feel when they are in so much emotional pain they have to cut themselves to re-direct their brain signals. Well, now I will stop writing about love and go spend time with Laura, who has helped me feel more loved than probably ever before in my life. While I know I can't be responsible for her feelings, a lot of the time I actually enjoy helping return the favor to her. We are going to go take a ride up the teleferico to the top of the little mountain here, go to the park as lots of couples do here in this city called Salta, Argentina. And I will tell Laura, "Thanks for being with me." And that will mean more to her than a dozen roses. I asked her actually if she would like me to kill some flowers and give them to her. She laughed and said, "No gracias." One more thing. I've said this before, but I can't write about love and society without repeating that we don't value love in schools. We don't consider it something worthy of teaching children and teens about. This is something else I'd like to see changed. I really hope my website is making a difference in the world, and continues to do so for many years. And I hope we all take love more seriously. S. Hein -- |