“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”

February 14 — Valentine’s Day.
A day when expectations bloom like roses. Flowers, cards, chocolates, candle-lit dinners... the world seems to pause and ask, “Who loves me today?”

Everyone celebrates it in their own way — some with grand gestures, others with quiet longing. But beyond the gifts and dinner reservations, a question lingers in my heart:

Do we really understand what love is?

I’ve often heard that hate is the opposite of love — but the more I observe, the more I disagree. Hate is noisy, reactive, dramatic. It still carries emotion. It still acknowledges the other.

But greed — greed is different.

Greed takes. Love gives.
Greed drains the spirit of others to glorify the self.
Love sacrifices, quietly and wholly.

We often confuse kindness with love.
But kindness is reciprocal: "I’ll help you now; you’ll remember me later."
Love, on the other hand, isn’t measured. It doesn’t send reminders. It flows, because it cannot do anything else.

We love, and in that love, we give.
Not because we’ll get something back — but because the act of loving fills us.

When we expect something in return, we invite disappointment. We invite betrayal. But when love stands alone — without conditions, without demands — it never feels cheated.

True love doesn’t bind. It liberates.

Loving those we cherish is easy. But what about those we dislike?
Can we offer them grace? Can we give them kindness, knowing they may never repay it?

That’s the hardest test of love.
Giving where there is no applause, no affection, no reward.

But perhaps that’s the highest form of love — the kind that humbles the ego and frees the soul.

The Bhagavad Gita reminds us:

“Love must liberate the one who loves.”

So on this Valentine’s Day, I choose to remember:
Love is not a performance.
It’s not a contract, not a negotiation.
It’s a way of being — giving, without need. Trusting, without control.

Let the world celebrate love today.
I simply choose to live it — quietly, freely, and without condition.