Birthdays etcetera

 

As we are growing up, I feel, the glory or excitement associated with a birthday diminishes.

For a politician, a birthday might be a tool to gauge his or her own popularity; for a supporter, wishing the politicians on their birthdays may be with the motive of getting a toe-hold for future favours.

But for us ordinary mortals, birthdays are just feel-good doses of wishes from friends and acquaintances, and now with social media, from complete strangers as well!

I am a bit skeptical with the whole concept of birthday wishes, as I am confused on what basis is the idea of wishing annually on birthdays was derived!

I completed 2860 weeks of my birth last Sunday; so why not happy 2860th birthday?

I complete 19000 days of my birthday in another 20 days; so why not happy 19000th birthday?

And so on.

Even otherwise, we are congratulating someone for achieving something that just happened – having a birthday! No effort was required to achieve this feat except, perhaps, staying alive!

As children, birthdays were filled with excitement and fun because of expectations of gifts, of enjoying good expensive food with friends, of many friends coming together in your house and for games, a real day to remember!

As we grew up and started on our jobs, birthdays became excuses for binges and drinks; of fun filled evenings with colleagues at work!

As the gloss begins to wane off, the next milestone was the 50th “surprise” birthday party, meeting friends that you haven’t met for ages (and probably will meet only on the next milestone surprise party, if ever!), and for those whose children are already well employed, the surprise gift car!

I wouldn’t say I am not happy with all these birthday wishes; it is just that I get a bit embarrassed and over-whelmed not knowing how to thank for the wishes fully knowing that I had put no effort in achieving this milestone.

In my opinion, birthdays must be each person’s own personal day for introspection.

Introspection, to judge what we set to achieve, and what we have achieved so far, in our life journey!?

Introspection, to judge whether we have been good human beings, to judge whether we have been fair to our family, to our job, to our colleagues and to society!?

Birthdays are to go through our own bucket lists, to fulfill what we set to achieve and to fill in more lists into the bucket.

Birthdays are to resolve to be better human beings, to resolve to stay fit, to resolve to reduce our consumption and reduce the burden on environment.

Birthdays are to be more sensitive to others, reach out to those less fortunate than you, and be sensitive to our own selves as well.

Birthdays are to introspect how well have we been taking care of ourselves, our own body – physical and mental health.

Birthdays are our own personal special day.

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