Valentine's Day has long been associated with romantic love.
Legend has it that, in Roman times, Valentine was jailed for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians.
As the story goes, Valentine's parting letter to his jailer's daughter, whom Valentine was thought to have healed, was signed 'Your Valentine'.
Provided, however, you're prepared to heed its key message, Valentine's Day can help you to live a longer, better life.
Here's how.
Valentine's Day can provide an annual reminder of the importance of loving and being loved.
And we now know that to love and be loved helps to add years to our life and life to our years.
Two things...
Despite what's presented to you by various media, love is not sex.
The other is that the chances are pretty good that you're not going to be loved until you learn to love: the onus is on you to start things moving.
Here are a few things to consider - and hopefully add to your already impressive list of love-making skills.

1. Learn to love yourself.
   Before anybody can be expected to love you, surely you have to love yourself - warts and all.
   Why would anybody else consider you lovable if you don't consider yourself to be?
2. Let people know that you care.
   Make contact for no reason other than to tell them that you love them.
   You might scare the hell out of them, but so what?
3. Practise what Dale Carnegie' said: that you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
   The road to someone's heart is to talk to them about the things they treasure most- and that's usually themself.
   
4. Build and maintain friendships and relationships.
   Aristotle considered building friendships the highest goal for humankind.
   Albert Schweitzer, too, believed that everyday relationships were key to a longer, better life, when he said, 'In everyone's life at some time, our inner fire goes out.
   It is then reignited by an encounter with another human being'.
   
5. Give of yourself.
   Even though Valentine's Day may have become 'gold' for retailers, you needn't follow trends just because someone else told you to.
   Drive your own bus! Try, for example, volunteering.
   You'll be surprised what it can offer you.
   
6. Be there.
   Availability and accessibility are the qualities that most kids grow up to expect of their parents.
   Most kids never grow out of this expectation, and love you for it.