The Day After

I hope everyone had a special Valentine’s Day yesterday, spending time with the one or ones we love.  I remember a time when Valentine’s Day and the days prior to Valentine’s Day were just plain painful and I’m sure there were some who dreaded yesterday and are glad February 15 has come.

I mentioned in a previous blog (see “Attitude of Gratitude”) that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I have to admit that Valentine’s Day is probably one of my least favorite “holidays”.  There’s the whole “commercialism” aspect and more importantly the celebration of our love for others on just one day.  See, similar to my feelings about Thanksgiving (being that we need to be thankful every day) we need to show our love to the people around us every day.  In the last blog I posted, (see “Love Actually”) I proposed that it is possible to love people, even those we don’t particularly “like”, and so let’s do us all a favor and show it. 

I know, it can seem a daunting task, especially when we have been programmed to think that “loving” someone entails “retail”, meaning giving gifts etc. but what about just thinking the best about another person – ALWAYS? Now that’s a cost effective mind-set!

What about when we see something that reminds us of someone to just call or text that person to tell them you were thinking about them?  That’s really meaningful.

How about seeing another person, not as they are presently (especially if they’re being a pain), but how you know they can be and then call them up to that standard?  How?  Well Moms, we’re really good at this! Remember when we first found out we were pregnant?  How we just knew our kid would be the next President of the United States?  And then when he/she was 2 or 3 (or 23) and they weren’t acting very “presidential” we’d call them on it? We’d say, “Hey, that’s not very presidential!  Don’t you know who you are and who you’re meant to be? Now act accordingly.” Now THAT’S a loving act!

And so today, the day after Valentine’s, I am calling out our best.  Let’s love on the people all around us from this day until….well….forever.  We know who we were meant to be, now let’s act accordingly.

-Tessa L. Charles