Birthdays. a Bit Arbitrary, No?

Let’s get this straight, I am not complaining about the chance to have a party and be the centre of attention for a while. Instead I’m just looking at the idea that maybe they shouldn’t be important. Cos to be honest, what happens in a year to celebrate? The Earth is back in the same position to the Sun as it was at the moment of birth, kinda. 

Basically birthdays are a good way to waste some money. When a child is young they have huge parties to celebrate an arbitrary event that they don’t understand. When you think of the ‘requirements’ of a good party the cost is probably around £400 each time when you think about presents, food and all other costs. So a parent will spend £7,200 on birthdays by the age of 18, at least. And then you have the massive booze-ups that come later. Think about how much you spend on a night out at the age of 18 when you’re trying to get drunk, now imagine you do that for 20 friends, again that will add up.

Maybe I m being a bit grouchy, but which of these birthdays are important to mark, really? There are some things you can’t do before the ages of 16, 18 and 21. So those. 3 out of 21. And here is why I wanted to write this article – people get elevated to centre of attention for no reason, but that means they just have the come down afterwards, and get a bit miserable. It’s part of the human condition; either you have to think back to a time that was good, instead of now, or your special day wasn’t that special.

The same thing can be applied to other holidays, to a point. Why celebrate each year of marriage? To death do us part, so you go into it aiming to be married forever. So basically this is “congratulations on neither of you dying” and that is something that should be celebrated anyway.

So the final message, don’t celebrate 1 day a year, celebrate all of them. Be happy to be alive and stop being arbitrary. I’m celebrating being 8035 days old as much as 22 years today.