
My Birthday – Why Celebrate?
It was my Birthday on 12th January (yesterday). Those of you who could not wish me, here’s your chance to do this now. I am in a Birthday mood today, so I decided to take a break from my normal and scheduled sharing. Today I am writing about My Birthday.
For many early years of my Life, I was never happy about my Birthday. In fact, I used to wonder what’s so special about it? Why do people celebrate at all? What’s there to celebrate and make a big deal about it? If someone asked me for gifts, I would give them a tough time lecturing (even when I was like 7 years old) and they would also get turned off. My sister and my Mother would see through this charade that I put up and would try to make my day special. She would get me some gifts and cheer me up. Of course, I was happy receiving gifts but wouldn’t accept that I was happy. and would mostly remain philosophical about it. Most of you know of my Spiritual journey since early childhood. That gave me the reason to think of Birthdays as merely another day in my life which should not be overdone. One of my Birthdays, I noticed that I was rather sad and everyone around me was trying to cheer me up and most had slowly given up on that too. They had left me alone to myself (not with myself 🙂). It is then that I noticed that this needs to resolve. What was going on with me, I had to now understand and solve this Birthday riddle.
If you have not read my previous blog on “need for appreciation”, then do read it to appreciate this sharing. There are some close connects between this and that blog. You will appreciate this blog more if you have read that one too.
This behaviour of mine was quite closely connected to my Need for appreciation and since I felt I wasn’t getting it, hence I had turned philosophical and probably a recluse. Whether one has achieved anything in life or not, Birthday is that day when people expect unconditional love and affection from their loved ones. Our parents, spouse, children, close friends and siblings are those loved ones. This has become an acceptable expectation over the past few decades and is now growing at a pace. To meet these growing expectations, loved ones are having to prove their love by doing various things like throwing surprise parties, weird gifting ideas, doing something unusual. All this to make the birthday boy or girl feel special. I am no one to judge this as right or wrong and neither should you be that one.
In order to truly understand, listen to yourself closely when your Birthday comes. What is your compulsion? Do you need to feel special? Do you need to feel loved? Do you need to be appreciated, to be the center of attention, to be praised? Examine this carefully and accept that compulsion completely. Do not rationalise it or suppress it. Examine it well and accept it. Once accepted, now remain humble and graceful and reach out to your loved ones and collaborate with them to make your day special. There is no harm in doing so. This is one such day when people have no problems in making you feel special, if you remain grounded and reasonable. If you are too excited, then your expectations from others become unreasonable and people eventually have a problem with that.
Now, to be able to do this, the first person who needs to accept yourself is YOU. Unless you feel special and decide to enjoy your day, you can not remain happy about it. Believe me, no one wants to party with unhappy people. Your happiness has to be self-created and you will find people will gravitate towards you to be with you. Accepting yourself can have this magical impact.
After years of my Sadhana, I had to understand the existential side of my birthday as well… hence I share one of my realisation with you…
Born In this body,
I am an accumulation
In Debt,
to the Mother Earth
the elements
through the parents (who themselves were in debt).
I Live
for an opportunity
fulfil a responsibility.
With Gratitude and Humbleness,
I use each Breath
that I receive
for no price or consideration
and play my given role
with absolute Grace and Joy.
Each Birthday
I take a stock
of the little
I have done
against the vastness
I have received.
Each Birthday,
I Celebrate
the things
I could participate in,
and the
Opportunity
I have been offered.
I am Happy
I have decided to be,
For as I unburden my debt
of the years gone by
I have more breaths
to participate
and Liberate
every moment.
I celebrate, I am happy, I am alive and this is my decision. I share this life with you, and am confident, as you allow my Life into yours, this contagious celebration, happiness and joy will seep in. This is exactly what you need to do for others as well. And Birthdays are an amazing excuse to make a bright beginning. After all, we were born today!
Sameer Kamboj
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Happy Birthday!!
This life indeed has given much more then we have given it back. Birthday is the the one day that we can get overwhelmed by getting all the love and gratitude. The other 364 days if we are garcious constantly we may perhaps strike a little balance.
Congratulations for this new look blog site. Looking forward to more sharings.
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Happy Birthday Sameer. Thats a beautifullly written birth day blog & the the short poem & then video clip says it all. Keep spreading happiness & Joy. DASHMEET AKA DASH
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ख़्वाईशो के बोझ में बशर
तू क्या क्या कर रहा है..
इतना तो जीना भी नहीं
जितना तू मर रहा है
Excellent sharing with another fresh angle of vision….of course there are more to it……
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Amazing 🙂
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Wonderful…. Thanks for sharing.
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Super sharing 👌
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Awesome, a very different side of you witnessed today!! 😊
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Human birth is the biggest Grace/ opportunity given by almighty to merge back with him may be one of the reasons we all wish and celebrate our birth as Humans .
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Happy birthday Sir…Keep sharing your your learnings.. Thanks
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Super 🙂 thoroughly enjoyed reading the Birthday blog 🙂
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Super 🙂 thoroughly enjoyed reading it 🙂
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