Happy Valentine’s Day!

Taking a day to celebrate romantic love is sweet indeed. After all, from romantic love is born a family; romantic love creates a healthy space where children are raised; a healthy family creates a strong family; and a strong family unit contributes to the well-being of society.

Rethinking that gift, are you now?

Many of the things learned by two individuals in a healthy romantic relationship can be applied to the other relationships in our lives, from our family to our friends all the way to the most casual of acquaintances. Amongst others, we learn respect, kindness, fairness, and patience. What would happen if we applied these learnings to even the most informal of our relationships?

For example, how differently would Justine Sacco’s story have ended? She tweeted a joke that many—including myself—didn’t find tasteful at all right before boarding an eleven hour flight to South Africa. When she turned on her phone she found out that her tweet had gone viral and an e-mob had turned on her. Would each member of this e-mob have done the same to their romantic interest? Similarly—albeit in the realm of fiction—would we be labelling Severus Snape as a ‘complete twat’, denying that anything he had done was even remotely heroic? How would the writers of such posts react if a strong romantic interest of theirs had told them they had a similar past?

It might not be sustainable to pour as much time and effort into all our relationships as we do our romantic one. But perhaps applying the rules of love we learn from them into all our relationships would do wonders.

Image credit: Chad Mauger.