{"id":10208,"date":"2022-01-30T14:24:10","date_gmt":"2022-01-30T12:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=10208"},"modified":"2022-01-30T14:24:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T12:24:14","slug":"why-valentines-day-is-worth-celebrating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/?p=10208","title":{"rendered":"Why Valentine\u2019s Day Is Worth Celebrating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Love it or leave it, Valentine\u2019s Day is just around the corner. And whether you\u2019re a fan of the holiday or not, you probably thought about what romantic thing you should do or buy for your significant other.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The holiday was originally called St. Valentine\u2019s Day in honour of a Roman priest named, you guessed it, St. Valentine. Scholars believe there were three men by this name and all were martyrs. Each was brutally killed \u2014 beheaded, decapitated, scourged \u2014 for refusing to deny his faith. So how did we get from martyrs to heart candy? Good question. In Medieval times, people believed birds began to mate on Feb. 14, a symbol connected to love. They established the tradition of dedicating the day to lovers in honour of St. Valentine, who had demonstrated love in its most extreme form. This, in turn, started the giving of gifts, letters, signs of affection, and chocolate. The original meaning behind Valentine\u2019s Day has faded over time. The love many of us celebrate today is not the sobering, sacrificial love St. Valentine displayed. However unintentionally, Valentine\u2019s Day has turned into a holiday about proving our romantic love through grand gestures and big gifts. We compare our celebrations to others\u2019 and allow what we did or did not do to carry more weight than it probably should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several legends about St. Valentine, but the most popular one claims that St. Valentine performed secret, forbidden marriages for young lovers in ancient Rome. Evidently, Emperor Claudius II thought single, childless men made better soldiers, so he made it illegal for young men to marry. St. Valentine ignored this decree, and as the legend goes, was eventually put to death for it. Others speculate that St. Valentine\u2019s Day is simply the Christianization of the pagan celebration of Lupercalia, which was essentially a festival dedicated to the fertility of both Roman women and Roman crops; combined with a matchmaking element. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as St. Valentine\u2019s Day around 500 A.D., and the Roman Catholic Church dropped St. Valentine from the calendar of official, worldwide Catholic feasts in 1969, likely due to the unclear origins of the holiday. So, no matter how pointless you may think Valentine\u2019s Day is now, remembering how it got started should give you a reason to celebrate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Fila Antwine, lifestyle and relationship coach, celebrating Valentine\u2019s Day is more important now than ever, since we\u2019ve replaced human relationships with technology. \u201cEvery holiday serves as a reminder to take time out and acknowledge something. Valentine\u2019s Day is our reminder to stop the boring relationship routines and make special accommodation to make the ones we love a priority for a few hours. Valentine\u2019s Day is possibly a more important holiday today than it was in previous years. We\u2019ve become more involved with technology which has distanced us from basic human contact and connection. We need a dedicated day to reconnect and be more socially involved with the people that matter most. Plus, it\u2019s an excuse to spice things up, get sexy if you want, and have a reason to go out on a proper date.\u201d \u2014Fila Antwine, lifestyle and relationship coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Annie Wright, a marriage and family therapist, says you should negotiate with your partner the level of importance Valentine\u2019s has in your relationship. \u201cAs a therapist, I don\u2019t believe that it\u2019s helpful to have pressure or rules about how (and how much) to celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day. Like with any other holiday, it\u2019s subjective. Meaning if it feels important to you, then yes, it\u2019s important. If it doesn\u2019t feel important to you, then similarly, you don\u2019t have to place importance on it. Despite social pressure, you always get to decide which holidays you want to celebrate and how you want to celebrate them. What can be tricky is when you have a couple where one person places significance and importance on the day and the other doesn\u2019t. In this case, it\u2019s up to the couple themselves to negotiate the level of importance and celebration they want to put on Valentine\u2019s Day\u201d. \u2014Annie Wright, licensed marriage and family therapist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Relationship expert, Jennifer Seiter, says not celebrating Valentine\u2019s may cause breakups. \u201cIn my experience, it is important to celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day. A lot of the breakups I\u2019ve seen had one thing in common: not celebrating Valentine\u2019s Day together. It\u2019s indeed a hallmark holiday, however, if you want to keep your relationship strong you should take advantage of any holiday that can bring you closer together as a couple.\u201d \u2014Jennifer Seiter, relationship expert for Ex-Boyfriend Recovery. However, Valentine\u2019s Day and healthy relationships are not about being forced to show your affection. If you are coerced into an expensive gift or date night, then likely your relationship is struggling with acceptance and support. It may be your girlfriend is craving some assurance of how you feel about her or your commitment to the relationship. Grand gestures will not be able to replace emotional intimacy if the security of your bond is in question. If Valentine\u2019s Day becomes an argument, then you likely have deeper conflicts to examine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As commercialized and materialistic as Valentine\u2019s Day has become over the years, at its core, it\u2019s really all about celebrating love. Whether you\u2019re currently in love, you\u2019ve never been in love, or being in love has always ended painfully for you, the fact is, there\u2019s really nothing more universally human than love. Love inspires some of the best books, films, songs, and paintings. Love creates families. Love defies logic. No matter how painful it can be, love is kind of inevitable. Gift giving is not just a manifestation of modern consumerism, at its core, it is a manifestation of being sociable. Relationships are a key part of every individual\u2019s life, as well as society as a whole, and through gift-giving, we establish a relationship where there was none before or re-establish an existing relationship; as Bronislav Malinowski, a well-known 20th-century anthropologist stated, reciprocity is an implicit part of gifting. Moreover, single or not, Valentine\u2019s Day is a perfect excuse to treat yourself. You deserve a present on Valentine\u2019s Day, and it doesn\u2019t need to come from someone else for it to be awesome. In fact, you\u2019ll probably like it better, because you\u2019ll be getting exactly what you want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love it or leave it, Valentine\u2019s Day is just around the corner. And whether you\u2019re a fan of the holiday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":0,"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10210,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions\/10210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insight-egypt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}