There are many so-called annual "special" days in a given calendar year that are celebrated, and some of them are indeed worthy of the title. However, others really don't deserve the "special" designation. Yes, this entry is going to sound as cliche as it can get when it comes to expressing my opinion on why Valentine Day is really not one of those "special" days. I still wanted to go on record and try to articulate what my reasoning behind it was. Who knows... I might find a hole in my reasoning... or you might and point it out for me. Humor me and read on, please. ;)

So lemme start by giving you a few yearly events that I do consider special: marriage anniversary, Birthday, and New Year's (be it Chinese or not... just choose one) day to a slightly lesser degree. Now let's see what all those days have in common. They mark a day which indeed only happens once a year, and the very fact that they can happen only once a year already makes them pretty darn special to me. Now let's list some not-so-special days: Father's day, Mother's day (or parent's day), Children's day, and, yes, Valentine's Day. Of course I also need a third category which is "it depends"... These are religious or national hoildays such as Christmas Day, Independence Day, Thanks Giving day, etc... they can either have a great meaning to you or it just falls into the "not-so-special" day category depending on your cultural and/or religious orientation.

The reason why days like Valentine's Day fall into the not-so-special day cateogory is because the objective of those days can be achieved basically on any day. For example, the objective of Father's day is to remember how much love your dad has poured into raising you and to give you a chance to express your gratitude. Now let's think for a moment... Is there any reason why you can't do that on any other day? None that I can think of. That is not to say that those days are useless. As a matter of fact those days could be exceptionally useful if you haven't been able to achieve the goal up until that day or you're afraid you might not be able to achieve it before that day returns the following year. Those of us engaged in the modern time's so-called "busy lifestyle" may well neglect to express our gratitude towards our parents and may never even stop to think of them throughout the calendar year. So these days can serve as an opportunity to perhaps finally give your parent's a call, or maybe have a family get-together. However, if that isn't the case, virtually every single day in the calendar year can be a father's and mother's day. Sorry, that ain't a special day in my book. And naturally the same holds true for the oh-so-lovely Valentine's Day.

Now some of you are going to say "Oh, you should be especially nice to your significant other on Valentine's day"... *SIGH* Listen to yourself.. Why wouldn't you think that you should be as nice as you can to your significant other on as many days of the year as possible? Should you restrain yourself from providing them with your "ultimate nice day" just so that they can really see the difference on Valentine's day?? I'm sorry, but I think you shouldn't need Valentine's Day to show your siginificant other how much you care for them. If you do, then that to me is just really sad... Of course if you haven't been fully expressive of your love on other days this is probably a good day to make up. But, I wouldn't make that a habit... ;)

All this is not to say that you should ignore your significant other if they nag about how important they consider Valentine's Day to be. It's probably not worth it to try and reason with them on this kinds of issue. But give in to the nag ONLY if you're willing to spend the rest of your time with them celebrating infinite number of Valentine's day to the same degree (or greater) as you did the first time around. Good luck! ;)