As Valentine’s Day approaches, the theme of love and hearts is more likely to be prominent everywhere we look around, including in our paper, the Arthur. Shockingly this week’s issue is called self-love, as opposed to “love.”
The issue I find with naming it self-love as opposed “love” is that I find Valentine’s Day is a day to give and love, not a day to be selfish. And when I say love I do not mean sex or any dirty thing that may come to mind.
I mean demonstrations of care, admiration and appreciation for other people, for not only my boyfriend but my friends and all the people around me. In Mexico this day is called the “day of love and friendship,” a day to celebrate all caring relationships that we have.
I believe that a person gains more in giving than in receiving. This feeling is experienced when we help the poor and we only get a smile, or when we help someone in need. In switching from self-giving to self-love, we are negating the purpose of love which I believe it is an action that demonstrates care, appreciation that sometimes comes through self-negation.
With self-love, depression comes around the corner since we are only focusing on ourselves and our own issues. We pretend to care for ourselves, by taking a bath, doing our nails, having a glass of wine, watching a movie, but at the end of the day we are all alone, with no one to share this happiness.
When we focus more in giving away a smile, a thank you, a kiss, an appreciation chocolate, we make other people happy and we experience a happiness that comes in the act of giving instead of receiving.
Sadly, I believe this self-love takes its roots in feminism, which encourages self-indulgence and “self-love” (which I like to call selfishness). Feminist women tend to think they are doing the right thing, being independent, “finding themselves,” fighting for equality, we all know the drill.
But the truth is what we are doing is keeping the women in their own bubble, sad and alone. With the fear of men as rapists, sexists, etc., feminist women are scaring away men who may want to be gentlemen by demonstrating in their own ways their appreciation for our femininity.
An example that comes to mind is my boyfriend who held the door open for a woman and she instead complained saying she had two arms as well.
On the other hand with the promotion of abortions and birth control women are getting more and more alone since they are avoiding being surrounded by their own offspring who will return love to their mothers as a reward for their self-sacrifice.
For this reason I would like to encourage everyone reading this article to reconsider their views, and maybe don’t be a feminist this valentine’s day. Love everyone instead (even men)!
Take a risk, and instead on focusing this day on how alone you are or on how much sex you are (or aren’t) going to have, focus it on how to make the people around you happy, love others before yourself and you will notice how your own personal experience of love will increase.