This week millions of people around the world will be signing cute cards and gifting romantic roses to their loved ones and in many of them, they will sign off with the classic phrase: Your Valentine. But how much do you really know about the “Hallmark Holiday?”

Do you know the kindness and selflessness from which the day originated? Do you know Valentine of Terni?

Valentine lived in Italy during the middle ages and was a priest in the Catholic Church. During the height of the Roman empire, the Romans would take as many 18-year-old unmarried men and put them into battle. The Romans’ reputation was not good among the villages, as many of the men knew being selected meant their futures would likely end in bloodshed.

Valentine would help these men by marrying them off to young women making the men ineligible to join. He was then captured and imprisoned for his ‘crimes’, but he fell in love for his captor’s blind daughter after he healed her. In his last days he written to the captor’s daughter in a letter signed Your Valentine on Feb. 14, Thus creating the classic phrase for the now labeled romantic holiday.

His story emphasised helping someone. Nowadays not many people show kindness in the same way as Valentine. He helped someone just out of the goodness of his heart not because it helped him personally. Many people don’t just help someone out of the kindness of their heart they often do it because they are getting something in return. The definition kindness is “The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.” dictionary.com stated.

Kindness can help everyone, from helping a friend by letting them vent to you or just holding the door for the elderly. Kindness is an impression that can be left on someone by doing a simple task; it doesn’t need to be extravagant ,it can simply be a smile. We as society can show kindness by just acting like human beings, once you or someone shows a little liveliness then we all start being kind to another.

With kindness being rare today we can still bring it back; you can show the smallest sign of kindness by simply asking someone how their day was, or just even smiling at someone because you never know what someone is going through.             

 Valentine’s story ends in sorrow but it gave the modern world what we know as Valentine’s day, his love for the captor’s daughter was a pivotal point in the romantic holiday  for he created the phrase that is on practically every gift, Your Valentine.This day not only symbolizes love but kindness, Valentine had seemed to have such a love for showing his kindness and helping people, his love and kindness for others is a rare. But we can change that; we can create a movement that encourages kindness, that encourages friendliness, that encourages love for all, and we can change how the world acts starting with ourselves. So I challenge you, yes you, to show a random act of kindness, you can help change society with just one small act of kindness.