Valentine’s Day is on the way, and it's time to celebrate what we value. Our own Bohemian Capitalist, Heather McElhatton, has a very special Valentine's Day salute—a declaration of love ... for the stock market.

It’s true. I love the stock market. Even though it’s been a bad year, and my stock portfolio and I could get a booking on Jerry Springer to confess our mutual state of disrepair and co-dependency—I can’t help it—I’m still in love with the flighty behemoth, the ups and downs, the 300-point drops and the two-point gains—the scandals, the Cinderella stories, the blue chips, the analysts, the trading floor, the starting bell, and the closing line. And crazy as my true love seems, I’m still committed to making the relationship work.

Here’s why.

The great Greek philosopher Plato wrote of a love called "eros." He described eros as a passionate desire for a specific thing that seeks transcendental beauty—a love without reciprocity. Translation: I love the stock market even when it doesn’t love me.

You see, you can’t run with the herd. You can’t sell off because everyone else is, or buy because a stock seems trendy or IPO-licious. You have to love the Stock Market for the great grinding machine that it is. You have to love without flinching, even when your portfolio sends you a valentine of red line losses and you worry: Will you ever love me again?

Yes. Hope springs eternal. If you’ve built your portfolio with all the research and attention a true love deserves, you can bet your sweethearts will come around.

Aristotle called his brand of love "philia"—the derivative of our modern word for "family." Unlike the passionate headstrong eros, philia denotes mutual friendship and affection built on similar interests and admiration. Reciprocity is key, and philia is the concept to draw on when you feel your portfolio isn’t up to par. You have to ask yourself: Am I spending enough time with this relationship? Am I engaged and excited about it? If I’m not excited about investing in my portfolio, how can it be excited about me? You can only expect to get out of your portfolio what you put in.

Yeats said, "Things fall apart." Emily Dickinson said, "Hope is the thing with feathers." Whatever that means!

Finally, a third kind of love that philosophers chronicled is called "agape." Agape draws on elements from both eros and philia in that it seeks a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness, a transcending of the particular, and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity. Philosophers called this "the love of God." I’ll call it "the love of Alan Greenspan."

No matter what our portfolios have done to us—been fickle or untrue, gone behind our back, or been disappointing right to our face—you have to love the entire premise: free trade for a free people in the greatest country in the world. Love is fickle. Love has no cure. But in the end, it’s the greatest commodity we have.

I’m Heather McElhatton, the Bohemian Capitalist, wishing you and your stock portfolio a very happy Valentine's Day.