"LOVE IS A FRUIT IN SEASON AT ALL TIMES, AND WITHIN REACH OF EVERY HAND."

It is that time of year again, when that vague ache of loneliness we acknowledge now and then, but manage to soothe away with a busy life, becomes the elephant in the room. The air is filled with the thick musk of shared love, once again plans are being made, outfits bought, cards sent for Valentines Day, and the world becomes divided.

All focus is on partnerships, togetherness and mutual love. The lucky ones boast of candle lit dinners, thoughtful gifts and poetry. Most are simply happy to be reminded that someone loves them above all else and they are not alone. James Baldwin wrote “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within”.

This one day of the year can bring loneliness into sharper focus than any other day. Like Christmas it is closely associated with togetherness and whilst it can unite people in love, it isolates those who have no one to celebrate it with.

Pascal wrote "The heart has its reasons that reason does not know." and those who have ever experienced being ‘in love’ certainly describe that feeling of madness that shuts out the rest of the world. It becomes all consuming, controlling every ounce of our being and every second of our lives. It takes on a magical quality having the power to alter people and direct lives. Lao Tzu wrote “Being deeply loved gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage”.

 Love is the narrative thread not only in novels, but in life, it produces possibilities and is an agent for change. If you are single on Valentines Day and wish you weren’t, the temptation to wrap your self up in misery and hide away must be banished, that way lies loneliness.

Not being in love is not important, what is important is that one is capable of love. If you are open to love there is more truth than nonsense in the idea that if you live the life you have imagined it will become reality. In order to be loved you have to be loveable, people in love give off a palpable air of happiness which is infectious so try  to copy them, even if you fake it get out there and have fun. Often when your expectations are at there lowest love will find you.

Wordsworth wrote ‘Love can be found in huts where poor men lie’ so explore every avenue, your greatest love may turn out not to be someone you think you can be happy with, but someone you know you can never be happy without.  

Title quote by Mother Theresa

“AT THE CENTRE OF YOUR BEING YOU HAVE THE ANSWER; YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT”.

Do we really know what we want or do we want what everyone else tells us we should want. Are we so focused on being like everyone else, following the rest of the herd, not standing out, that we have forgotten what it was we were searching for in the beginning?  

It can be like being in a crowd of people who are climbing a hill to see the view from the top; if we never make it,we get angry with ourselves that we can never get quite as high as every one else, so we start off trying to catch up with the others again. In the end it becomes all about keeping up with those above us and we forget that what we started off wanting was the view. Caught up in the feeling of being left behind, we never realize that the same view is just as beautiful from half way up the hill, and that in trying to keep up, we have passed it unnoticed many times.  

Why do we value things more if everyone we know has one, if it is sought after by others. Why don’t we treasure something that no one else wants? Perhaps it is to do with conformity, in not looking odd or sounding different, we want to be like everyone else, and that means wanting what they want. Praxidis Guerrero wrote “To be dragged in the wake of the flock, and to pass a hundred and one times beneath the shears of the shepherd, or to die alone like a brave eagle on a rocky crag of a great mountain; that is the dilemma”.    

There are those who genuinely don’t care what others think of their choices, and they are to be envied. For most of us to stand alone and to celebrate difference takes courage, it marks us out as odd, but the alternative is never to have what we really want, perhaps never to know what we really want. Being content to chase things just because others are chasing them often means giving up personal ambition, never having a dream that is all your own, and never feeling a joy that is understood only by you.  

“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity".  Thomas John Watson Sr

Title quote by Lao Tzu

“YOU NEED TO LEARN TO BE HAPPY BY NATURE, BECAUSE YOU'LL SELDOM HAVE THE CHANCE TO BE HAPPY BY CIRCUMSTANCE”

Aristotle wrote” Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” and indeed we chase happiness as if it is a ball just out of reach, if we run faster, reach further, or jump higher, we will have it in our grasp.

We each define happiness in a different way; however it is nearly always about something we want. We know we would be happy if we had money, if someone loved us or if we were recognized for our talents, as if happiness were not a state of being, but a by product of something else.

Thomas Jefferson thought that “Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind” and if we accept that happiness is not a place to travel to, or something to save up for, then we can come to terms with making a conscious choice to be happy, rather than waiting for it to arrive as a response to something that we are constantly seeking but may never find. As we grow older happiness changes its form, so perhaps it is better to grab happiness as it runs by rather than stalk it for years only to find once caught that it isn’t what we are looking for any more.

Often the difference between misery and happiness is like turning a light on, once you flip the switch all aspects of your life are illuminated and we realize that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a particular cause for being happy, except that we are.

When all your desires are distilled, you will cast just two votes:
to love more, and be happy.     Hafiz of Persia

Title quote by Lavetta Sue Wegman