Your birthday is just a day in a year but no matter what else has engaged you in the course of the other 364 days, you owe it to yourself to indulge in some kind of celebration on this particularly special day.
Dont do it alone though. Celebration is merrier when it involves others who would joyfully participate in your day in the sun!
Finding yourself alone and lonesome on your birthday without a flury of goodwill messages and perhaps with scheduled or surprise visits of some well wishers is proof that you haven’t done enough to cultivate the beautiful relationships that abound around you.
Notwithstanding
your status per time, it is unthinkable that you wouldnt have some close friends and relatives who would make it a point to celebrate you on your anniversary.
I am aware that different people have different ways of commemorating their day. For milestone birthdays, the common fad is to celebrate it big by rolling out the drums. At other times, for ladies especially, birthday is nothing if not accompanied by fresh pictures in a variety of dresses and scintillating poses, taken in a studio or with a professional camera just to give that sense of celebration. Such pictures are often taken a couple of days prior, ready to be splashed on the celebrant’s WhatsApp status or facebook page strategically at dawn. Thus a floodgate of felicitations is flagged off as every contact is alerted, one after another, by the usual prompts in a near seemless chain of interconnected contacts.
By the way, memories are made of these photos, and I encourage all to have more than enough of them, whether formally or ramdomly taken . They come handy in the future when stories of a lifetime adventure must be put together.
Back to our subject, it needs be acknowledged that not everyone is a social media freak! There are those who are very private and would give anything to keep themselves out of the noisy media, except for strictly professional matters.
I belong to this latter group.
However, much as I love my privacy, I look forward to all the messages that are bound to flow in on my birthday – family, friends, mentees and associates who have made it a point to bear the date in mind. I confess that some of these messages make me feel truly special and relevant, as those who sent them sincerely intended.
The ‘happy birthday’ theme is an ever relevant one that resonates with everyone. No wonder even the banks have made this a core of their ‘ know-your-customer’ practices, investing in a simple technology that sends heart-warming messages of felicitations to every customer on his/her anniversary.
I received such messages from my bankers yesterday, 2nd May, my birthday, and some were particularly so beautifully crafted that I had to go recheck my balances in case some hefty deposits had been made into them without me noticing!
Evi-Edna Ogholi’s 1988 record ” Happy Birthday” remains a D.J’s inevitable trump card at getting everyone to the dance floor at any birthday party even till today. Same with Stevie Wonder’s evergreen “Happy Birthday” song of 1981.
Biblically, we are also enjoined not to ignore our birthdays, at least that’s the message I got in Psalm 90:12. It says
“Teach us how to number our days so that we can apply our hearts unto wisdom”. Here, we are admonished to seek divine
wisdom that enables us to consciously accounts for our time.
Time flies, life is uncertain, and it is important, therefore, to value the moments and days God has given us, not knowing what tomorrow brings.
