Bitten by the love bug

"The best things in life are not things." I read this from The Purpose-Driven Life. This statement moved me and made me realize I’m richer than I ever really thought I was.

The love we give and our relationship with the Higher Being matter most. It’s our self worth that makes us richer and more powerful. Living and not knowing our purpose doesn’t make sense. But often, we disregard these facts.

Kindness, even to those who are unkind to us, means learning one of the most important elements in living a healthy life. Learning to let go is maybe the hardest thing to do, but is the most effective way to become more emotionally healthy.

Once a year, we celebrate our love for others. This is the only day when "think" we practice romantic things. But we don’t realize that we do it every day. We have different ways of expressing our romantic side and our definition of love.

Here are some of the ways Hollywood defines "romance."

"If a man lets all of my dogs sleep in the bed with us, that is the most romantic thing. You must love my dogs in order to love me. A man who is nice to my animals and doesn’t shoo them away — well, that’s the height of romance," says Salma Hayek.

Jennifer Garner says, "I think the most romantic thing is to see your baby in the arms of the man you love. I can’t think of anything in the world more romantic."

According to Tim McGraw, "Faith (Hill) and I have romantic times in our farm. We ride around on four-wheelers, ride horses and play with the dogs and kids. We really whoop it up, which is very romantic."

I never thought Charlie’s Angel’s Drew Barrymore would find romance in the simplest thing. She says, "I think kissing in a darkened movie theater is definitely one of the most romantic things I’ve ever done." These things happen every day. We don’t need to feel pressured to do anything too extravagant for Valentine’s Day, because the most romantic things come in small, simple moments.

Love is not something that can really be defined. It’s almost like an automatic thing, where we hold responsibility for keeping our significant others happy all the time. Our typical Filipino tradition in courting, or ligaw is one of the sweetest things that ever existed. There’s absolutely nothing better than good old-fashioned Filipino love, or lambing. Emotions run deep in our culture.

Here are the different ways our celebrities define love:

• Maritoni Fernandez: "Love is unselfish. It is constant. It is when you feel strongly about wanting to make another person happy that you would go an extra mile to accomplish that.

"A smile from your loved ones, from deep down their souls, makes you giddy because you know you’ve done something wonderful for them that made them feel what you feel… deep love. It’s when you put someone else’s feelings above yours and back them up with actions because talk can be just that, talk. It’s about being there through it all. The good and the bad, but specially the bad."

•Cass Ponti: "Love is like an experiment where you keep trying even if you fall. You keep on loving, even when you’re hurt. And that’s because we want to find the right love that will last forever."

• Melanie Marquez: "God is Love and love is you."

• Kitchie Nadal: "Love is Jesus."

• Diana Zubiri: "Love is a wonderful thing."

• Jolo Revilla: "Love is sacrifice."

• Mariel Rodriguez: "Love is something that can wait, and when the time is right, love will conquer all."

• Francine Prieto: "Love is not finding someone to live with. It’s finding someone you can’t live without."

And I say, love forgives, knows when to let go and holds no anger towards anyone. God is Love. We can’t love others unless we learn to love ourselves first.

Have a great Sunday and Happy Valentine’s!