Birthdays

Birthday is that day of the year when everything is miraculously amazing: the boring school day, the tiring work at job and even the almost stranger like acquaintance. Everything and everybody is welcome and you are brimming with so much joy that all you want to do is share it with the world! The teacher doesn’t scold you, cos it’s your birthday. Your friends are super nice. And for the older kids, it’s time for birthday bumps and party! Birthdays, are fantastic.

But hold on. Isn’t it also that time of the year when you find out who truly cares about you to remember a day that is special to you though it is extremely ordinary for them? Yes, it is the day for secret character assassination (it’s a secret you shall never divulge) of everybody who did not wish you. Your only aunt, that old friend, nobody is spared. Birthdays, are important.

Everyone who doesn’t have a great online presence and is specially particular to change the settings on each social media platform to hide their birthday, will surely have that special set of people who they consider so close to them that they have immense faith in their recalling ability that they are thoroughly sure that a reminder from an algorithm is unnecessary for those people to make their birthday special. It is only when this special set has an amnesia attack on the day of your birth, do things start going downhill.

Why are birthdays so important? We turn a year older, we aren’t any wiser. We sit in anticipation of gifts, go on shopping sprees, and leave no stone unturned on making ourselves feel like royalty; all for that one day. Why? The answer is simple. Birthdays are special, for we have been trained to believe so. Sure, it was a happy occasion the day we were born. It must have been for our parents and family. The remembrance of the joy is worth celebrating. But it is wrong to expect every person we encounter to feel the happiness with the same enthusiasm.

The centre of every person’s life is their own self. Every other person is just that, “an other person”. So it is wrong of us to expect that everybody we care enough about to remember their birthday will remember ours. Birthdays and wishes must be heartfelt. It isn’t true when written on a wall by a person who hasn’t spoken to you since high school. Nor is it true that a person who doesn’t wish you on your birthday doesn’t love you. Your birthday happened to be at a lower priority on their to-do list for the day and somehow got conveniently erased from it.

For everyone who has ever had a birthday, stop fretting about (and caring about) those who didn’t wish you: go have a blast, love your life and self! Happy birthday!

Yardstick

The judging of people, the analysis of their behaviour and deconstruction of their character is an unconscious activity every person carries out with impeccable perfection each time they meet a person. It is only when explicitly told not to judge, does the realisation strike that the action of judging has already been completed. Why does one judge the other when judging people is considered wrong? Could it been an evolutionary instinct, embedded deep within every being, to be able to steer clear of possibly dangerous people? It could be. 

But the notion that judging people is wrong is clearly an elitist hypocritical idea, trying to appear falsely accepting of every person without outright announcement of disapproval. Judging characters is necessary for only that allows opinions to be formed. What is necessary is not to get judgemental.

For how long do those opinions derived from calculated thought remain correct is a question of importance. People change over time and so should the opinions formed about the new them. It is also possible that people change not just for the better, but for the worse too. In such a scenario judging them becomes quite torturous. Though an unconscious activity, its effects start showing on the conscious mind as well. Confusion arises about the righteousness of the act. Though their changed character is glaring us in the face, the mind refuses to let go of the previously accepted opinion but cannot stop forming new ones. What then is the right thing to do? Should it now be accepted that judging people is wrong after all? 

Judging people and forming opinions aren't ever wrong and neither are the confusions arising out of continued judgement of ever changing characters. It must be understood that opinions formed are meaningful to only the opinion former. It neither affects not changes the people being judged. There is no correct way nor is there any right situation to judge people for there is no yardstick to measure the extent of correctness or wrongness. It is extremely subjective and highly diverse. Different people behave differently in different situations. The same person might behave differently if faced with the same situation twice! Hence this imaginary yardstick is different for judging the same person again. Understanding the shortcomings of this supposed yardstick and knowing that what meets the eye need not be truth in entirety, elevates the mind to a higher, more conscious state.