There is a lot of rave about love, valentine and gifts. We have come to an era where gifts have become the main feature of Valentines’ day. Everyone begins to hold his or her partners and friends alike to a pedestal. I am not saying that giving or receiving gifts on Valentine’s day is a bad idea but I begin to draw the line where there seems to be nothing else we can seem to do anymore. The pressure on the younger generation to celebrate a day that is seen as a lover’s day has become almost unbearable. This stems from the fact that we are beginning to lose the true essence of what love, valentine and gifts truly mean.
What is love?
There is so much noise around the meaning of love that it becomes more confusing to put a meaning to what love truly means. However, I have always believed that its different strokes for different people. Philosophers from various eras have defined love from their perspectives. In my opinion, love is being selfless. When you love someone, it is more about the other person than about you.
We have come to a time where people have a warped sense of love and because there are dysfunctional people everywhere that are fast becoming role models, we find it difficult to see where things are going wrong. We are raising a generation that is confused about where they are going as well as what their values and orientation about life are. These are people who go-ahead to start romantic relationships. These individuals then get to define love from a place of ignorance.
We are in a generation where people tend to fake everything that concerns them. The length that people go to get likes from people that don’t know on social media is alarming. This is the reason why people would rather stay in dysfunctional relationships just for the show-off. We have come to a time where we only define love by the volume of material gifts that we get. We have become so money-centric that we find it difficult to define love without money.
What is Valentine’s Day about?
I do not want to go into the origin of Valentine’s Day, instead, I want to dwell more on what Valentine’s Day is about in the present day. If you ask me, I would say Valentine’s Day is showing off your partner to everyone who cares to look. To some, it is a season to judge the health of their relationships and to others, it is simply another day to enjoy the attention of their loved ones.
Gifts
Gifts are something given to another person from a place of thinking about the person. To some gifts is the only love language they understand. Although, in as much as I am not disputing that love can be expressed by giving gifts, gifts shouldn’t be limited to material things. People tend to forget that spending time with someone is still a gift.
On a day like valentine, where people go to the extent of posting somebody else’s gifts as theirs or buy things for themselves and claim that a secret admirer got them the things, they are posting. These narratives beg the question of when gifts become something that we need to lie about.
The Controversy
We have gotten to the era where we can only show love by gifting each other material things. People go to extreme lengths to be able to afford to give their partners gifts. Some take loans and some tell blatant lies. On a day like Valentine’s Day when people are carried away with the worth of the gifts, they get you, begin to wonder what is the true essence of love?
The truth is yes! Valentine’s Day can be attributed as lover’s day. In other words, a day we show off our partners or milestones in our relationship. However, should we limit this show of affection to only Valentine’s Day?
I am a firm believer that your partner is a gift in them. We all tend to forget that the greatest love of all is self-love. How can you claim to love someone else when you have forgotten that you cannot give what you do not have? Let us normalize taking care of ourselves and not feel sorry to post these things.
On the subject of gifts, the best gifts are not necessarily expensive things. The sentimental value placed on a gift would always supersede its monetary value. It is not about going as far as taking loans, committing a crime or losing yourself to send your partner a gift but realizing the fact that someone else thought about you and took their time, effort and money to gift you something should be enough.
Someone that doesnt appreciate a little gift, will still not be grateful even if you give them the whole world
In conclusion,
To truly express love, you need to understand better the act of self-love, self-care and selflessness. In my definition that is true love. Secondly, in as much as, Valentine’s Day is lover’s day and a day that has been accepted by individuals around the world as a period to show love, let us not limit celebrating our lovers on that day only. Celebrating your partner should be a consistent habit. Thirdly, let’s make it a habit to give our partners more personalized and sentimental gifts.
Are you still having issues finding the perfect gift for anybody? Watch out for our next post!
