Find the Happiness Within

It used to be that around Valentine's Day, I would pack the apartment with junk food, pop, movies, and enough entertainment to carry me through this miserable day of fake love. This year, though, I will actually have a date and someone to spend an evening with. Maybe a nice casual dinner, a movie, and some wine (among other things). Sounds fine to me.

However, for the sake of tradition, I'm gonna tear down Valentine's Day anyways. For most of us, Valentine's Day does not symbolize love. It symbolizes the need to be in love so that society can't call you a sad lonely person. It symbolizes profits for companies that market and sell V-day crap. Gone are the days when Valentine's Day was a day for romance, and not last minute shopping for chocolates and roses. Future Shop has the right idea.

Guys rush out to buy lingerie, or candy, or jewelry that's somehow shaped into hearts. Girls wait for their man to remember it's a special day to celebrate their "love" for each other, only to receive gifts that either make them feel not-so-sexy, or gifts that benefit the guy more than the girl (that's for all you guys who buy lingerie for your girlfriends especially for Valentine's Day). And all for what? So that society can't say that this year is going to be another lonesome year without someone to love?

I guess what bugs me most about all of this, is that people fail to realize that they've become dependent on someone else for their happiness. "We place our happiness in other people's hands" sings Darren Hayes, lead singer of Savage Garden. In each of us, is the ability to be happy and feel love if only we'd stop to see it. There was a time when I was like this too. When I relied on boyfriends and friends to make me happy. What's more, silence and solitary moments became oppressive and suffocating. I needed the noise and distraction that can only be procured from interactions with other people. It wasn't until I got dumped for this very reason that I learned to love myself, and to enjoy being by myself. He said to me, "You need to learn to happy by yourself before you can be happy with someone else." Truer words have never been spoken.

Essentially, your life ought to be at a level where you are already happy. Boyfriends, girlfriends, and friends should be extra to your pre-existing happiness. They should bring you higher, but not be required to satisfy that threshold. I have made this a philosophy to live by, a Golden Rule, if you will. These days, I find great solace in simply being alone, with time to reflect on what makes my life meaningful. That's not to say that I no longer enjoy being around other people, in fact I've become better connected with those around me since I discovered this ability to find happiness within myself. The circle of people close to you should cease to be crutches with which you would have supported yourself. They're seen as friends, people to be cherished not used.

That being said, I can now safely look back at all the years spent wishing I had a date or hating all those who did. And though I don't need a date to enjoy Valentine's Day, dating is still a fun thing to do. Especially when the guy sitting across the table looks like he just stepped out of a magazine....