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!
