It is early February, which means my kitchen table has been commandeered by a small army of glitter pens, heart-shaped stickers and perforated cardstock.
My third-grade daughter and my two sons are deep in the logistics of the elementary school Valentine’s exchange. It is a high-stakes economy. Who gets the “cool” superhero card? Who gets the generic “You’re Nice” card?
Watching them, I realize they are being socialized into a very specific cultural script: Success is defined by what you receive.
As adults, we don’t outgrow this anxiety; we just professionalize it. We treat Valentine’s Day as an annual audit of our lovability. If we have a partner, we measure the quality of the dinner reservation or the thoughtfulness of the gift. If we are single, we measure the silence of the phone against the noise of social media. The metric is always the same: Am I chosen? Am I held? Am I receiving?
My job is translating academic research into language real people can use. I work at Baylor University’s Institute for Global Human Flourishing alongside Dr. Matthew Lee, who studies love and well-being using data from the Global Flourishing Study — a Harvard partnership tracking hundreds of thousands of people across 22 countries.
This January, Matt and his co-authors published a series of new findings from a dataset of over 38,000 Americans that debug the cultural code of Valentine’s Day. The data suggests that while feeling loved is important, the act of showing love is a stronger predictor of a flourishing life.
Matt’s framework contains a distinction between two dimensions of love. “Unitive love” is what my kids are worried about receiving in their Valentine’s boxes — the warm affection, the sense of being cherished. “Contributory love” is different. It’s the active commitment to will the good of another. It’s the effort. The contribution and action.
The cultural narrative tells single people they are in a holding pattern, waiting for their life to begin. The data says: Start the engine. You don’t need a romantic partner.
When Matt’s team ran the regression analyses, the results were startling. While feeling loved creates a necessary floor for mental health, showing love provides a unique ceiling for flourishing. The boost in well-being associated with high levels of contributory love is statistically comparable to the difference between feeling your income is “sufficient” versus “insufficient.”
In the economy of human flourishing, love is a currency as hard as cash.
This counteracts the modern, therapeutic view of the self that treats us like batteries — vessels that need to be charged up by affirmation before we can function. The data suggests we are more like engines; we are designed to run, to output, to generate. When we stop giving, the engine seizes.
This isn’t just an American phenomenon. The Institute’s global data suggests that showing love predicts positive outcomes across cultures. It validates what Thomas Aquinas defined as love in the 13th century: not a feeling of warmth, but velle bonum — to “will the good” of the other. For Aquinas, love was an act of intellect and will, an outbound passion. He argued that this active willing ennobles the giver, often more than the receiver.
I want to be careful here, because I’m wary of “life hacks.” “Just love people more and you’ll be happy” would be selling you a half-truth. Love is risky.
I’m a 6′5″ guy who loves skiing, but I’ve had bilateral ACL reconstructions. I know in the physical world that carries risks of injury. The same is true for the relational world. Every time you reach out to a neighbor, offer forgiveness or show up for a difficult relative, you expose yourself to rejection. The data shows that on balance, givers flourish. But it doesn’t promise you won’t get hurt.
So what’s the application for this weekend?
If you have a valentine, the research suggests that focusing less on how they make you feel and more on how you can actively seek their good isn’t unromantic — it’s how you both flourish.
But the real power is for those who don’t have a romantic valentine. The cultural narrative tells single people they are in a holding pattern, waiting for their life to begin. The data says: Start the engine. You don’t need a romantic partner. You can love a neighbor, a friend or a stranger.
This Valentine’s Day, I’m trying to teach my kids to flip the script. Yes, the candy hearts are nice. Being chosen feels good. But the real magic isn’t in the box you receive; it’s in the card you write.