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Wake Up and Smell the Cake
IDEA: NADEEM REHMAN MALIK
Birthdays – boon or bane? Either you love them or hate them. You either look forward eagerly to the ‘oh so special’ day in the calendar or dread the very month in which it falls. I personally tend to go for the latter options myself. It’s not so much birthdays themselves, as is the celebration factor that really irks me. Think about it, all that hoopla and hullabaloo associated with a person’s day of birth – and what for exactly? For being born, for turning a year older? Indeed, all we are doing in celebrating our birthdays is patting ourselves on the back for having yet another year gone by. It’s almost like an annual acknowledgment of our ever-decreasing life span. Yes, I realize this is an awfully depressing, bordering on macabre assessment of a generally much loved tradition. The fact of the matter remains though that a birthday is a wake up call and a rude one at that. Birthdays are merely reminders of the year gone by. More often than not, instead of applauding yourself for all that you may have already accomplished, you start over analyzing everything that you still haven’t achieved.
I used to think that I was the only member of the ‘I-hate-birthdays’ anonymous club, but then I discovered that there are others out there. Anyone who believes that celebrating birthdays is pointless belongs to this club. We argue, what’s to celebrate? To add to our misery, we’re forced to commemorate the occasion anyways! Thus every year, against our better judgment, we too announce to the world that we’ve done it a tremendous favor by being born. All those near and dear to us must rejoice and shower us with presents while they’re at it. Ok, admittedly, that was quite a rant! I must have come off sounding like a bitter, cynical old woman and I certainly can not blame you considering the way I’ve droned on and on. Let me assure you to the contrary though, in particular about the bitter and old part, I don’t loathe birthdays. If anything, they provide the perfect opportunity for some much needed introspection and to really take stock of what the future holds. I confess that the above outburst can be largely contributed to writer’s block, for which I sincerely apologize! My own birthday recently passed, just last month. Ironically enough, it’s not the getting older bit I have a problem with at all. I’m a young, twenty something, who loves her work and is blessed with a great family and fantastic friends. Why shouldn’t I want to celebrate my birthday?
I suppose it boils down to the ritualistic significance attached to celebrating birthdays that annoys me more than anything. I’ve never been much of a traditionalist and I guess birthdays just happen to be one of my pet peeves. Call it a whim or a fancy, but if one should wish to have a quiet birthday with some alone time, is it really that bad? Try as I might, I’ve rarely been able to extricate myself from the celebration madness that my friends and family inevitably pull me into. Lo and behold, there I am, like a once giddy schoolgirl partying away and basking in the glory of it all.
So what exactly was the point of this piece anyways, you ask? Excellent question, because for the life of me I can’t remember either! Chalk it up to a particularly bad Sunday read and feel free to use selective memory loss as far as the article is concerned.
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NADEEM REHMAN MALIK
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Comments
A good read FIONA MUMOKI | Sep 13th, 2005
Hi,
this was such an entertaining thing! Although I do not belong to the I-Hate-Birthdays club, I agree that It can be quite a depressing time of the year if after you take stock of your life, you find that you have accomplished little or nothing.
BIrthdays should be a time of reflection and celebration. REflect on how far you have come and celebrate the fact that you have survived both the bad and the good times. This is when you will realize just how strong you really are.
Birthdays are also a time when family and friends come together. So, all in all, birthdays are a really good time of the year, to me.
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