Monday, February 14, 2011

My Favorite Holiday

You might think that Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday because I'm a true romantic. And don't get me wrong, I do think that Valentine's Day is a wonderful time to celebrate the love we have for the special person in our lives.

But Valentine's Day is also fraught with difficulty. Why is that? I don't think there's another holiday in which it is so clear that we're comparing a story of what we think should be with what actually is. And there may not be any other time, where no matter what our circumstances, there can be such a gap between what is and what we want.

Our notions of romance, after all, are informed by fairy tales and childhood dreams, and even if our relationship is wonderful by any other measure, it often falls short of that standard. But that doesn't mean that anything is wrong. It only means that we want something different than what life is currently giving us.

Valentine's Day is an opportunity to see through the story that we are told. It is a chance to see that things are only lacking in comparison to that fairy tale.

We can see that our life, this moment, is already perfect. Whether we have what we think we should want or not.

Jeff

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