Sad to say, but sacrifice is also an important and necessary part of love. Acts of sacrifice play an often-inspirational part in human culture because, to a degree, greater or lesser, it involves us overcoming our hardwired instinct to survive and preserve ourselves. If love were all about the good times, then it would not be half as treasured as it is. There must be good times too, but a view of love as just this — that it comes with no effort or sacrifice, without obligation or responsibility — is not rounded, but blinkered. Relationships and love are hard work.
Another great love-myth is that it is plain sailing. Even the smoothest relationship has occasional kinks and most relationships have occasional bouts of heavy weather. My favourite example of this is Hollywood love. All romantic movies include an awkward middle, a time when the future happiness of the star struck screen lovers hangs in the balance. Things always turn out for the best in the movies, which is unfortunately where the parallel with real life ends.
Some would say love itself is an ideal and there is some truth to this, but like most truths, its one-sided and fails to recognise the very real experience of billions upon billions of people who are in love. Day in and day out they express that love and feel it in a way that bridges the gap between our emotional universe and the physical world around us. No matter how many times people get burnt, they keep coming back for more. That in itself should say something.
Valentines Day is an occasion to celebrate more than our individual circumstances. It is an occasion to celebrate one of those great things that cuts to the very essence of what we are as a species, something that makes us truly human.
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