I recently celebrated my 22nd birthday. Age 22 is not quiet the oldest someone can get, but the fact that I got here is a testimony on it's own. Yes. I am a believer in God and I know these years have not just been there.
So! Birthday. This is a day of celebration and many call this "their day". Not a bad notion at all but if you think of it, it is also an opportunity to learn. Quiet a number of learning points on my recent one and here I am to share, being the good man that I am. Take them or leave them but I recommend the former.
The first of these started coming up way before the day. What basically happened is that someone (me) took it to a a social network to announce his birthday a week prior. As you would expect, people took it as asking for gifts and all and started giving all sorts of not-so-intelligent comments (Trying so hard to avoid the word stupid here. It was for humor anyway) but one in particular caught my attention. This one said that I just needed to bear with people because they usually accuse others of not telling them of their birthday and on their own birthday accuse others of not remembering it. That was quiet a revelation, if you think of it. So this world basically is full of people who say, "remember my birthday and remember to remind me of yours". The application of that? Well. You might want to figure that yourself. It is intelligence that is taught, anyway. Not wisdom.
People aside, the day itself comes with expectations and we cannot be immune to them. Sometimes it is just very important to keep the expectations low but the challenge comes because it is very hard to know how low is low enough. You might expect little and not tell people that you do but still people get some mind reading powers all of the sudden and lower the delivery below your already lowered expectation. Wanna ask me how to deal with it? I don't have the answers. The fact that I told you this exists means that I am already giving you solutions. See it coming and keep that smile.
When I said expectations have to be low, they have to be low for everything and in this case everything simply means everything. Ideally, physical presence is quiet a thing to get nowadays because if you are like me everyone in your circle is a busy person. Gifts are hard to come by because everyone's Malswitch (why do we still call it that, anyway?) or salary has already been budgeted for and your gift has no space on it.
Ideally you would just expect a phone call, but nowadays people do not make calls anyway, so any form of text message should be your minimal expectation. Sounds reasonable to expect, but wait a minute. People do not want to do that either. It turns out to be hard for people to send two lines of a text message so don't expect that either. People don't want to spare time to give advice despite this being the information age (did you know it was, by the way?) Just enjoy it when it comes.
This lowering of expectations should have no exceptions, anyway. It should go across the list of friends and family and everyone you can mention.
So... Why are these Matteos Gudu philosophies coming? Well, the point is just that there was a time when birthdays were those things that would make people give you attention for a day and ignore you for a year. Now they are worse than that, so face it.
Good sides to birthdays. They are really cool, the best side to it being the cake and the food and the Sprite. And yes... Ice cream for people who do that thing. Do these if you can, but if you can't don't force. Being broke is a vice so don't get into it because of a birthday. Adding years shouldn't subtract from your pocket so be smart about it and spend wisely. If people make something for you, partake. That's one of your functions on a big day like that anyway.
Music. Let's not take long with this. Dance where necessary.
Back to information. The birthday can be a very important source of information. If you believe in the Johari Window business, here is the day you get information about what other people know (or maybe think) about you but you don't know. Somehow people get loose and say what they have been keeping from you. So fascinating to hear. Had the best dose of that on my 20th. For the rest of the years, I have either gotten better or people have gotten softer on me, telling me nice things only. Quiet interesting. If it is the same with you, you might want to take it with a pinch of salt. No one would want to spoil your day, would they?
So, how do we sum this up?
Birthdays are good but they seem to be getting trickier with time with the changes in communication and financial conditions. Best we can do is to embrace these changes to avoid frustration. On the other hand, when a friend has this once a year event, let us learn to put a smile on their faces. It makes a great difference.
All in all, everyone celebrating a birthday should know that getting older is an hourly thing. Happens per minute and second if you like, so having it big, much as it might be a good idea is not that significant. What matters is translating the growth into actions.
I must say I enjoyed my 22nd, though. That was real fun, thanks to those who made it for me.
Quiet enriching. Actually what someone said as birthday advice is what prompted me to post this. Shout out to Joram O Nyirongo. You ate the cake and said something wise. Fair transaction.
All in all, birthdays are overated.
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