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sunshine jen: Love, Love, Love
It's Valentine's Day today. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
I used to be down on Valentine's Day with its paper hearts, corn syrup candy, and flowers that will die soon. Back in grade school, we used to have to decorate shoe boxes and pass out little pre-made Valentines. Even though it was a nice break from learning, it all felt dull especially when several people passed out the same pre-made Valentines.
Then, as I got older, the Valentines pressure was on romantic love and going out to dinner with a partner or going out to dinner with friends when there was no partner. This year, Valentine's Day is on a Wednesday, and I will admit, my plans include putting on my comfy fleece and watching Olympic Pairs Figure Skating. The celebrating and chocolate eating will happen on the weekend.
But also, on this day of Love, I want to take a few hundred words to reflect on Love. It's very easy to say there are many kinds of love. Romantic love, family love, love of friends, love of humanity, self-love. Lots of love.
There's also loving what one does. It took me a long time to love what I do. Five years ago after I walked across Spain, I realized I had to trust the love especially what I do with my time. I realized there were three things I loved to do: write, walk, sail, so I set out to do those three things as much as I could.
Some interesting things happened when I started to do what I loved more. I became much more generous and way happier. Opportunities to do these three things more opened up. Stupid crap became much less important.
Am I living a perfect zen life filled with total calm and clarity? No. I am an imperfect human being, but I can live with my imperfections. My Mom used to tell me, do what you love and the money will come later, and I'm still working on the later money.
So on this day of love, I will admit, I didn't do it all for love (like the song in A Chorus Line), and I wouldn't do anything for love (sorry, Meat Loaf), but I do love what I do. . .most of the time.
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