Importance of Birthdays!

It was my birthday recently and as per the usual practice, when I was asked by my parents if there was any special I would like to do, I said "I just want to relax, it's a normal day like any other to me".

It has been some times since I actually cared about my birthday and I have always questioned the yearly practice and ritual of people receiving the royal treatment once per year on the anniversary of the day they were born.

It dawned on me some time ago, the reason why many people covet their birthday is that it is only really on our birthdays that we actually feel important! We actually feel as though we are valued by more than just the few people closest to us with which we have regular contact.

On our birthdays we receive a great many gifts such as money, clothes, fragrances, jewelry etc. But the most important gift of all, the one that we truly crave on our day, is ATTENTION!

Suddenly streams of texts, messages and social media posts seemingly come from out of the blue, placing us upon this glorious pedestal, almost as if we were set upon a throne, friends new and old, long-lost family, people who we had not spoken to for some time offer their respects in the form of acknowledgment of our birthday.

But this practice of showering people with attention on their birthday, starting from childhood, created this social pattern of going 360+ days showing minimal attention and then cram it all into one spectacular display of affection, attention and glory on special occasions!

This in turn has created a need for people to be recognized, to feel as though they exist, so these widely spread occasions such as Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays, Valentine's Day, Christmas day etc. Become times when people put all their hopes into having a special memorable day, all because the memories made throughout the year are lack luster by comparison and when the expectations are not met, people often become disappointed and even go as far to say the day was ruined.

As i have watched social convention dictate the sudden influx of attention given on these “special days,” I couldn’t help but feel as though we have lost sight of how important the other days of the week are. The whole concept has created the idea that unless something special happens on any given day, then the day was neither special nor memorable.

Additionally, i find that on these special days the so called “effort” that is put into the day is minimal at best. There seems to be little sincerity behind the gestures, buying pre-printed cards that were made and designed by a company, going out for a meal to where someone else has prepared the food, purchasing gifts absent of any personal touch outside of personalization options.

Money seems to do all the hard work whilst we puff out our chest with pride and marvel in our own generosity, in some cases even the amount of money spent is directly related to the “effort” that someone has put into making the day “special”, you hear it when people compare the gifts they got for or from different people, placing special emphasis on the ones that were more expensive.

So birthdays may indeed be a time to celebrate and perhaps be thankful that we have made it through another year, but for many people they are also quickly becoming a day by which an entire year can be measured, all because of how important that one day has been made out to be...