Ulang Tahun: Tentang Ketidakbiasaanku pada Kebiasaan Itu

Birthday... I never really grasped the idea of celebrating birthday with the whole cake-and-candle stuff.  It may be just my scepticism, but I do feel that nothing is special with a birthday, really.  I mean, it's just another day in a year and it's not even the same day with the day you were born.

I understand the reasoning behind the celebration: we gather our beloved to show our appreciation and gratitude for the gift of living.  What I don't get, and don't particularly agree with, is the full-blown celebration most people seem so keen to throw whenever they have a birthday.

What I really want to say is I don't mind to gather with people I love to say thanks and appreciate life--perhaps with some sort of reflections on what we've achieved so far in life.  But such gathering has nothing whatsoever to do with birthday.  We gather to appreciate life--that's the point, and we can do that at any day of the year.  When you shift the focus to 'celebrate birthday' . . . I don't know, I just don't get it.  Because, most of the time, you forget about the life-appreciation altogether and you just lose yourself in the celebration.  

I honestly feel worried whenever parents (or other prominent figure of a family) instill in a child's mind that his/her birthday is coming and that he/she should celebrate it.  What worries me is that they often forget to tell the child that it is not the birthday celebration that's important.  They forget to explain why there's a celebration in the first place.  The child will think that a birthday is very important, but he/she will fail to see that it is but one form of life-appreciation.  That's what worries me the most. 

For me, if I throw a birthday party/celebration for a child, it will be a fun-enjoyable format to teach him/her to appreciate life; to appreciate what he/she has, what he/she has become, to make him/her realize that he/she should be grateful because there are people who love him/her and that he/she should share that happiness and gratitude to others.  And I do hope that the child will one day understand that intention, not just blindly believing that birthday party is a must while missing its meaning entirely.

Good morning.