Love is not a feeling. It's a practice.

Valentine's Day was Thursday. My daughter, at twelve, is entering the age where Valentine's Day is beginning to have new meanings — where the heart-shaped cards of primary school are giving way to something more complicated and interesting. She received something. She hasn't told me what. I haven't asked. We have reached an equilibrium that I find both right and slightly poignant.

I want to write about love today not as a feeling but as a practice, because I think the way we talk about love — as something you have or don't have, something that arrives or leaves, something felt rather than done — produces a model that is less useful for children than the alternative.

The useful model is this: love is not primarily a state. It is a set of actions, performed repeatedly, over time. You do not love someone and then the love exists as a possession. You love someone by the things you do in the direction of their flourishing — by showing up, by paying attention, by saying the true thing when it would be easier to say the comfortable thing, by staying present when leaving would be easier.

This is a learnable set of skills. It is, in fact, the same set of skills that underlies good friendship, good parenting, and good citizenship. The capacity for sustained attention toward another person's wellbeing, repeated over time, regardless of mood.

The capacity for sustained attention toward another person's wellbeing, repeated over time, regardless of mood — that is love. It is also citizenship.

The capacity for sustained attention toward another person's wellbeing, repeated over time, regardless of mood — that is love. It is also citizenship.