February 14th, 2012

Be Nice to Everybody Day

I got over my Valentine’s Animosity years ago, and I’ve been liking it more and more. It’s a great day to be loving towards people you don’t always remember to treat that way–people in the grocery store, fellow highway drivers, the bus driver. Sure, why not do the traditional Valentine’s things (eat red foods and dessert with frosting on it), but also remember to extend the love beyond the warm glow of the people you’re generally nice to anyway. I do worry about our societal presumption that the people we won’t have to see again, we don’t have to be kind to.

I just realized that last year’s V-day post was almost verbatim this one, but with a quotation, so here’s one for this year:

“And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the light and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.”

Guess what that’s from? Under Pressure by Queen–not sure how that bit connects with the rest of the song, but I think the isolated sentence is true–loving one person a lot should make me more generous, more caring, kinder, even to those far from the spotlight of romantic love. Definitely the best couples I know, the ones I know are terribly happy with each other, are also better for it in other ways, and they share their good fortune with those around them in their warmth and kindness. I hope my relationship is like that; I think it is. It’s certainly something to strive for.