February is here and it’s all about love. Soon enough our stores, television screens, ads and everything else will explode with hearts and red will be everywhere — all around you — you’ll almost be breathing it! I have nothing against these blatant over-the-top expressions of love. Heck! I welcome them. In a world filled with hatred, I welcome any effort towards love. But does love have to be celebrated only on one day? Does only the sexual or ‘attraction element’ of love need to be celebrated?

How about we celebrate love every day and celebrate all kinds of love, not just the romantic kind? We’ve all been there. Look back in time and I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where you felt unloved. The reasons could be many — people find new ways to be cruel to each other very easily. Take for example, the culture of bullying. Why does it continue to exist? Why do children continue to mock each other based on their looks, colour, backgrounds etc? Where are they learning this
hatred from?

I’ve never been lucky with love in the past, to be honest. I would definitely prefer giving it to everyone rather than giving it to the same person all day, every day. I would love to share this love that I think is ingrained in every human being with everyday people I see; people around me; people who are homeless; broke or alone — these are the people who are in need of love. I am not saying we all need to be the next Mother Teresa or Florence Nightingale. We just need to be our true selves and the love will come flowing.

Let’s all take some more effort to find that love within all of us, for everyone around us? That, I think, is the true spirit of this season. Happy Valentine’s Day!