Valentine’s Day: What’s your value?

Do you have an antivirus? I do. It’s some free stuff my brother – a little computer whiz – advised me to download from the Internet, but apparently it’s not so bad. It seems to work: whenever I put my memory stick in, it tells me I’ve got a virus; when I try to open a website, it goes nuts, and closes my window; but most and foremost, it gets all the necessary updates itself, regularly…that is every day.

However, recently it has started to expand its functions, now that Valentine’s Day is only 5 days away. After all, if it’s commercial, then let the celebration be 100% commercial, because that’s how the world economies started to collapse anyway No, it’s not because of Valentine’s Day, but because of the perpetually unfulfilled, constantly increasing wishes of a consumerist society – the one we live in today, and the one that has turned Christmas into an even larger commercial celebration than Valentine’ Day. So let the pop-up windows following any successfully installed antivirus update remind you it’s time you showed your love again.

It seems that everything has a value today. The car is worth £ 9,000. The house: £ 40,000. The dress: £ 900 (it’s a designer unique pièce ). So, not putting a value on love would be like it wouldn’t matter to you. But, precisely because it matters, you have decided to show that to your loved one. In style! A weekend for two in Paris, or perhaps the most expensive item you could find…How about that Swarowsky necklace she always desired? Or maybe that golden Rolex, incrusted with 25 small pink diamonds that he has been craving for ever since his best (?) friend bought one as soon as he was promoted head of a bank…(Hopefully, not one that has been recently affected by the crisis )?

It is quite interesting that out of the 365 days a year (or 366 in one of any 4 consecutive years, to be completely accurate) people have chosen ONE day to SHOW their love. Only one day! While celebrating love is a totally admirable idea, noteworthy and exciting altogether, Valentine’s Day is not about showing how much you love the people you love, and to whom you should prove that every day. In other words, the “how much” is what you should do away with.

Originally it used to be about anonymous cards people would send to their loved ones, mostly unaware of the feelings of the sender. It was fun, and it was what shy people would wait for, before seriously taking the risk of making a completely fool of themselves…or not And apart from them, there were also the receivers who would eagerly and impatiently wait to see who had had feelings for them all the year round, but didn’t dare to go upfront.

That was Valentine’s Day about. No expensive watches, expensive holidays, expensive…whatever. Love had no value, and for that it was worth having a celebration.

Think a bit of other celebrations we have. Earth Day, for instance. Now try and put some value on that. What are you going to put a value on, in the first place? And then, if you somehow manage to (if you do, please let me know, because I’m struggling to solve this puzzle ), then what can that value be? How much is your planet worth? How much are fresh air, clean soil and waters worth? You may calculate that by adding up the costs incurred by various industries in their attempt to comply with the environmental strategies and regulations. And, still…is that the real value?

Going a bit backwards now, how much is your love worth? Or better say what’s your value in your loved one’s eyes? A necklace? A Rolex? A weekend in Paris? Hmm…I’d say it’s priceless. But if you’re an addicted buyer, don’t worry…for everything else there’s a price…and there’s Mastercard too