GIVING IN TO CUPID’S ARROWS

There is simply too much sadness in the world these days, isn’t it? Death, war and economic instability have become our constant companions. We seem to be frowning more and more with each passing day, forgetting perhaps that we have all that we need to be happy right here in our hearts.
And right on cue, Valentine’s Day arrives and everything is a cosy bed of pink hearts again. Whether you lean towards the Greek Cupid or the Indian Manmatha, allow yourself to be show in the heart with those arrows dipped in sweet nectar, because it will slip into your blood that much needed emotion which makes the world go around – and not in the same way money does.
I refer, of course, to love.
If war is humanity’s great shame, and death its biggest fear, surely its highest achievement is its ability to love.
Yes, romantic love is great. Who can forget their first kiss, the first time they held hands, their first heartbreak, and their first rebound? If it weren’t for our constant need for romantic companionship, what would the now billion dollar industry of valentine cards and chocolates and flowers have been? Unemployed, we think.
But love means so much more than just our need to mate and breed. It is brotherhood; it is friendship; it is the warmth you feel in your heart when you look upon a baby smiling at you; it is the time when your child tells you about how he shared his toy with a friend who didn’t have any; it is not just about your first kiss or your relationships or your marriage, but also how you connect with each and every other person in his human thread of which you are such an indelible part.
Today more than ever, the old lines are disappearing. The convenience of travel has shrunk the world. But as old lines vanish, new ones threaten to appear. That has been the one enduring quality of our race: that we demolish old walls only to erect new ones. So we relegate love to romance, and we compress its meaning to only a tiny fraction of what it truly is.
The challenge to every one of us today that lives in this crazy connected world is to redefine love to include every human being on the planet. If we bring down the walls, let no new ones take their place. And lastly, let us remind ourselves that the calendar doesn’t need to tell us when to love and when not to love. In the heart of a loving person, every day of the year is Valentine’s Day.
So we’ll take this opportunity to wish you a year full of love.