I Hope You Find Somebody to Love

Hi again. It's me.

First things first: I decided not to make my January post a two-parter because I still couldn't come up with anything that I liked. That wasn't posted by my mom. You know? So Part Two will just have to go down in the catacombs of Sophie's blog history as a post as dead and boring as January itself.

Fitting.

Anyway, February is finally here. Or it will be, in a couple of days. I love February. It's short, and the less time you have to suffer through winter, the better. After February comes March, and after March comes April, and hopefully by then, spring buds will be blooming. And, of course, February is THE month for romantics like me!

Although my Valentine's Day looks like this:



:(. Oh, well. There's nothing wrong with that.

Valentine's Day is the thing in February, mostly because card companies and restaurants feel the need to elicit money from love-struck (or not) couples and high schools feel the need to encourage teenage romance with heart-themed dances. That said, I am in favor of the holiday. Of course I am. It's a holiday dedicated to love! And if you can't find it in you to tell your significant other that you love them on all of the other days of the year, you are pressured to on this day. Though I think you should feel that pressure all year round.

However, I don't think that Valentine's Day should only be about sharing love with your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/spouse. There are so many ways to show love to other people - your friends, your neighbors, your strangers. On Valentine's Day I would like to see someone celebrating another kind of love. The holiday is centered around romantic love, of course, but who says that it has to be that way? I think that people like this should be celebrated:

 

Love is defined by Dictionary.com as "an intense feeling of deep affection" or "a person or thing that one loves." By this definition, this modern world's definition, none of these people are showing love. The surfer isn't showing love to his friend by fulfilling his dream. The teenager isn't showing love by treating that little girl with respect and kindness. The child isn't showing love by befriending a blind boy. By this definition, "love" is a "feeling", an emotion, something fleeting and inconsequential that comes and goes between two people. This is the definition of love that Valentine's Day is built on.

I would argue that this definition of love is ridiculous.

Of course these people are showing love. They are showing real love, not a come-and-go emotion or urge that pop culture romanticizes into a completely unrealistic viewpoint. Love that you share with a lifetime partner is, naturally, different than the kind of love that these people are displaying; nevertheless, real, true love is not a noun for an emotion, but a verb, an action. Love is always shown by actions, whether that is a girl cooking a special Valentine's dinner for her man or a teenage boy teaching a tomboy to skateboard. Both are taking time out of their day to show another person that they matter. The desire to do these good works for others stems from an emotion, true, but the "loving" part isn't fulfilled until the works are. If others would describe you as a "loving person", it means they can tell that you treat others with the respect and honor they deserve as creatures made in God's image because you are obviously doing something about it. If you love your boyfriend, you take time out of your schedule to do something special for him. If you love your wife, you plan a date night when you know she will be able to enjoy it, even if it interferes with your schedule. If you love your family, you clean their nastiness out of the bathroom without being asked or hang your sister's laundry for her when she forgets it in the washing machine. If you love your best friend, you spend hours consoling her over the phone after her breakup, even though it interferes with your vacation time. Real love takes work. It takes action. Often, it takes sacrifice. But it is worth it, because you will create close relationships and those loved ones will, more often than not, return with kindnesses directed at you.

So even if you're single on Valentine's Day, you don't have to spend the night sulking with a spoon, a heavy blanket, a quart of Ben and Jerry's, and Allie and Noah from The Notebook. Instead, spend it thinking of things you could do to show the people you love that you love them.

I'll probably still have Ben and Jerry's, though.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I love you all!

 

I Hope Your Resolution Means Something

This is a new year.

2016.

Pandemonium erupted.

We waited all night on December 30th, anxiously anticipating 12:01, January 1, when all of our "old year" problems would magically disappear and we'd turn the page to a new chapter, a new year. And when that little zero finally flipped to a one, pandemonium erupted. Kisses. Embraces. Glowing spheres fell. For that one moment, everything was perfect.

And then that moment ended.

What makes us so excited for the new year? It feels the same as the old one, doesn't it? All of those New Years greetings feel a little cliché to me: "May every day of the new year glow with good cheer!" Get that cheesy grin off your face and step into the real world, please. I guess that goodness is what we want, what we hope for; but our resolutions die, our excitement dies within the month. By February all of our "Exercise more"'s and "Eat healthy"'s have faded into the every day doldrums again.

Sorry. I'm shooting down other people's hope.

But I'm not, really. Because even though this is going to happen, even though we're bound to lose steam after a while, there has to be some kind of resolution that we can keep. Something that isn't an "Exercise more" or "Eat healthy". Something that means something.

Why do people do "New Years Resolutions", anyway? So they can feel better about themselves? So they can fulfill the tradition? Or so they can legitimately work on improving themselves? That isn't hope, not really. These silly little lists don't restore faith in humanity because nobody ever sticks to them. They don't mean anything. And you can't say, "My New Year's Resolution is to make a resolution that means something!"

Come on.

So how do we change this? The non-fulfillment of the resolutions is almost as much a part of the tradition as making the list in the first place. We want to make resolutions that are meaningful but not cheesy, hopeful but not unrealistic. Maybe I'm placing the bar too high because I can't think of anything that exactly fits that description.

I think it'd be awesome if somebody could come up with something like that. I've done a ton of research and I haven't been able to come up with anyone who could fit my standards. The resolutions are made but never followed through. HOWEVER: if you have a story about an AWESOME resolution that you KEPT from any year prior to 2016 (obviously), email me at rsophie865@gmail .com or talk about it in the comments below, and I'll write about it in my next post!

I hope you all find some "meaningful" resolution to do that will eventually become a habit! Happy New Year! Go do something!