Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to suck for people who aren’t madly in love.

It doesn’t have to suck for the lonely, the brokenhearted, the widowed, the single or the people stuck in a lifeless, boring or, even worse, loveless marriage.

Valentine’s Day can be a life changing day. A day that heals, that inspires and changes your world. All you have to do is celebrate the right type of love.

The English language has just one word for “love.”

One word.

Sanskrit? 267 words for love. (No wonder yogis need so much time to meditate).

When you only have one word for love, the word tends to mean different things to different people in different contexts.

When we say we are in love with someone, we mean it differently than when we say we love chocolate (well, most of us do anyway).

When we say we love a movie or love hanging out with someone, we mean something different than when we say “I love you” to a dying parent.

In Martin Luther King’s masterpiece Strength to Love, he notes that the Greeks had  three different words for what we in the English language call love.[1]

The first type was called eros and referred to romantic love. Eros is sensual. It is yearning. Eros is the type of love everyone is talking about on Valentine’s Day. It’s passionate, all-consuming and sadly, rarely lasts – at least at the intensity it starts with.

The second Greek word for love was philia. It’s the type of love that you feel toward a friend or family member that you have affection for. We reserve this type of love for the people or things in life that we really, really like and who, in turn, like us back.

The third word is agape. I’ll let King take it from here.

Agape is, “… understanding and creative, [the] redemptive goodwill for all men. An overflowing love that seeks nothing in return … At this level, we love men not because we like them, nor because their ways appeal to us … we love the person who does an evil deed, although we hate the deed that he does.” [2]

It’s possible to feel, one, two or, ideally, all three types of love toward someone. And of course, it’s possible to feel none of them.

Valentine’s Day typically sucks for people who don’t have eros in their life — the people who aren’t going to spend the next 24 hours writing poetry, putting together playlists, raiding the chocolate aisle at their local grocery store or cuing up Marvin Gaye on their turntable.

It can also be a lonely day for people who lack philia. Perhaps you are disconnected from family or friends. Conflict, health or other reasons have created a gap between yourself and the ones you love.

Valentine’s Day can be an awesome day for agape, however. Anyone can have agape in their life if they choose to. You cannot make yourself fall in love with someone. It’s also really hard to make yourself like people. But agape? Anyone with a sincere desire to see the humanity of another person so clearly — that their needs, wants and desires matter as much to me as my own — can do it.

And here’s the thing about agape. It’s the sort of love that can mend relationships in our families. Overcome gridlock in the workplace. Solve for deep polarization in our communities and countries. Help us collaboratively problem solve with our adversaries internationally.

Writes King, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. Whenever get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. But it’s very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.” [3]

When that sort of love takes hold, our views — of ourselves, others, and conflict itself — transform. We no longer see enemies or others in conflict. We see us. It takes that level of care and concern toward the people we are in conflict with to truly solve the most difficult, intractable challenges we face in life.

Eros and philia can’t do that. That’s easy love.

We all want to live and work with people who love us. People who we like, are fun to be around, understand our brilliance, agree with our ideas and dreams, see our potential, and help us on our journey to become the incredible people we ultimately know we can be.

But, when conflict enters our relationships, easy love makes a run for it. 
And make no mistake, conflict comes in every relationship – no matter how strongly we are “in love” with or “like” the person.

Love becomes a lot more challenging when the people we live and work with don’t love us back, when we don’t like them, when they don’t get us or they drive us nuts, they don’t believe in our ideas and dreams or, even worse, they get in the way of our journey.

Here’s the paradox that makes conflict feel dangerous: when conflict comes, our instincts are to run or fight — to stop loving.

To transform conflict, we need to turn toward others, put down our physical and emotional weapons, and really love the people we are in conflict with.

I call that sort of love dangerous love – a love that overcomes fear in the face of conflict. Nothing is “safe” in dangerous love. Dangerous love requires more than courage: it demands fearlessness.

It is scary.

It takes risks.

Dangerous love transforms conflict by calling upon us to let go of our self-preservation instinct inspired by fear: “What will happen to me if l let down my walls and help the person I’m in conflict with?” and embrace us-preservation: “What will happen to us if I don’t?” [4]

It calls upon us to be vulnerable enough to open ourselves up with no guarantee that the person or people on the other side of the conflict will do the same.

It asks us to be the first to turn toward the people we are in conflict with.

Dangerous love is a love that allows us to see the humanity of others so clearly that their needs and desires matter as much to us as our own, regardless of how they see me.

It is the opposite of easy love.

It is choosing love over fear in the face of conflict.

It is choosing we over me.

Dangerous love is remarkably effective in transforming our conflicts because it creates space for us to truly see the people we are struggling with.

And you can start to practice it – today.

Forget the chocolates. The sappy valentines. The love songs.

Pick someone in your life who you are struggling with. Someone who the eros and/or philia has waned, and do something different this Valentine’s Day.

Give them a Valentine’s Day gift that will surpass anything you could buy or do.

Here’s what you do:

1. Remember a time when the eros or philia was a little or a lot stronger. Feel that moment. Immerse yourself for a few minutes on what it felt like when you were really in love or liked them and/or when they really loved or liked you. If you’ve never felt either toward the person you are thinking about, no worries, move on to step two anyway.

2. Now think about what it is that they are going through right now. Today. What is hard for them? What pain are they feeling in their life? What dreams are crumbling around them right now? What are they afraid of? The more we reflect on them and their challenges, the more we’ll be able to see them in a way that will be helpful to both them and us.

3. Now think for a minute (and this is hard). Has there been anything you’ve done to add to their pain? Intentionally or unintentionally? By action, or inaction, have I not been as helpful as I could’ve been in their life journey right now? How have I not seen them the way I used to? Or the way they really need me to see them?

4. If you have answers to those first three questions … you should be feeling something. The Arbinger Institute calls it a sense – something you could do that would be helpful to them. Perhaps it’s an encouraging text. Or an apology? Or an invitation to go get a drink and catch-up? Maybe it’s a small act of service or kindness. Maybe it’s just coming home from a long day at work and listening –really listening to them for the first time in a while with a genuine to desire to be helpful. And maybe it’s the whole Valentine’s show with candy, flowers and a
large stuffed Teddy Bear. Whatever it is, and only you’ll know for sure, go do that thing. No matter how scary it is. No matter how sure you are that they won’t appreciate it or won’t acknowledge that you’re there. Just do it.

I can’t promise you anything but this: while dangerous love may not work in changing the way others see you, it will always work in changing the way you and I see and ultimately treat others. And that is the sort of love that will save you and me. We love dangerously, regardless of how others see us, because it is the right thing to do, because it is the truth, because they are people. And when we do it for those reasons, 
it will be a powerful influence on others to see us for who we really are.

Dangerous love is a gift. A special, sacred one. And there’s at least one person in your life that desperately needs it today.

So put aside the ghosts of Valentine’s Day past and do something that, on a day that celebrates love, reflects the best kind of love. The only type of love that lasts or saves.

Open your eyes and heart to the people in your life you cannot or will not see. Choose dangerous love over fear.

It might not change the world. But it will change yours.

1 Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, p. 46.

2 Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, p. 46.

3 Martin Luther King, Strength to Love, p. 48.

4 Martin Luther King “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” Delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple, April 3, 1968https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ive-been-mountaintop-address-delivered-bishop-charles-mason-temple