Just Because

Last year in August, I began feeling some sudden anxiety. Nothing was acutely obvious, until I realized it was about a month before my birthday. 

Going from 38 to 39 meant I’ll be turning forty years old in 2022, but that wasn’t it. In fact, I’ve been enjoying getting older. After pondering what the issue could be, I saw the first sign.

My initial dread was connected to superficial interactions of receiving happy birthday wishes. Superficial, because it seems auto-filled by what Facebook suggests, plus I don’t hear from many of these people but on my birthday. 

In the prior year or so, I'd turned a corner and became less bothered that not many people would reach out to me on the other 364 days. I used to take it so personally. I still struggle with it at times, but I’ve been shifting my focus and energy towards having a healthier relationship with myself and deepening my faith while appreciating those that maintain contact with me, regardless of who reaches out first. 

Previous years saw me crave the attention and dopamine hits of seeing Facebook flood me with notifications that contained birthday wishes. This was before I realized how unhealthy that is, and I’ve worked hard to reverse that for myself. So, what really was my problem? 

I came to realize that yes, superficiality has always been reprehensible to me, which led me to my anxiety’s root cause: the surface level actions that have become synonymous with holidays. 

My birthday is barely before Halloween, where lots of people are more horridly pretentious than usual. 

A month later is a time of far too concentrated gratitude, followed by the next month of more concentration, in the form of the virtues and values of family gatherings and offering of gifts. 

In my life and those I’ve observed from near and afar, those and all the other holidays shine a huge light on the problem with them. They have become far too prescribed and scheduled. 

The older I’ve gotten, the less I want to be around people and situations where I feel an obligation instead of a choice. The people I see and talk to throughout the entire year are for me and I’m for them, and it’s done out of the shared joy of free choice. 

I’ve been on each side of choosing and choosing not to be in someone’s life. We all have a past, but the important part is to learn from it and not be stuck in it. Life must perpetually move forward, however small the steps are.

If a person feels obligated to be in contact with someone but they’re not an enjoyable presence, it must be communicated. Maybe it can be repaired, maybe not. If not, it’ll be too bad, but no one should stand in the way of anyone’s peace of mind and happiness. The more people that adopt this mindset in their lives, the better we’ll be. Critical to all this is to have an open mind to a variety of perspectives, with reciprocal empathy and respect. 

After any personal or widely observed holiday, the return back to the hustle and grind of life reverts too many of us back to the petty and ungrateful versions of ourselves. Most, when confronted on it, are oblivious and unaware that daily acts of love and respect are the true essence for any level of a healthy relationship, and that infrequent acts do not sustain.

Also horrible is that most holidays are widely seen as an excuse to indulge in gluttony and pleasure without fully grasping what occurred, who sacrificed what, and the gravity of who and why we’re celebrating. 

The most glaring example is the Fourth of July and how the environment, animals, and Veterans and others with similar PTSD have to suffer with fireworks. 

Freedom isn’t free, so be in daily practice of thanking every Veteran you see. Veterans have not been given what they deserve after what they’ve endured and sacrificed for us all to have what easily gets taken for granted. 

Besides commemorating my grandma’s death here each January and keeping track of how many books I read in a year, January to December doesn’t carry much weight for me.  

Your life is a story. It is nonlinear and marked in your ink on your calendar by events important to you instead of what is jotted on every calendar. A new year means nothing—there is no clean slate—so resolve to always be learning and growing. 

Your favorite people and celebrities dying and other unfortunate incidents is not the fault of the year. For example, the Covid-19 pandemic began in late 2019 and changed the world in early 2020, and still controls many of our choices today. Boxing it or anything else in a specific year or other limited time frames is too simplistic and takes our eyes off the bigger picture. 

A succinct quote I recently came across goes, “Tradition is peer pressure from dead people.”  We are far too unique and creative to submit to doing the same things with the same food on the same days every year, and with the same people we may begrudgingly see those handful of times each year.

Life is a day by day learning and growing process of the pursuit of the right balance of being present, reflective, and looking ahead. Seeing yourself evolving is beautiful, so don’t deprive yourself of it. At the right pace for you it can be maintained and further attained. Expecting or hoping for results within a time frame or an arbitrary schedule isn’t the point, and is a tightly connected aspect of why holidays and the overall prescriptive nature of them have led to counterproductive mindsets. 

Presently, I just turned 40 and it was a wonderful day, spent by myself, conversations with my parents, some words I wrote and read, bookended with a very close and special friend. 

My Facebook feed was populated by a few dozen messages wishing me a great birthday, with others messaging me privately. I was truly happy and humbled by all of it. 

A simple adjustment in perspective from last year to this year made a lot of difference. Leading into my 2022 birthday, I wasn’t anxious at all. Instead, I was grateful for every blessing without worrying about what I cannot control. 

For decades, there has been a designated spot in every greeting/holiday card department entitled something along the lines of, “Thinking of You.” Imagine if that was how we regularly interacted with each other, just because we care enough to reach out however we may instead of waiting for a holiday, anniversary, birthday, or a reason to extend condolences. Being alive is the real occasion we get to celebrate every day. Since we don’t know how much time we’ve got, let’s do it! Doesn’t that sound like a great step towards a much better world? 

Holidays have bled too much into our daily lives with our eyes on specific traditional days instead of being in a daily practice of what each holiday touts. Every holiday has its own unique and deep origin story, and I love or at least respect what each holiday represents. Observing them in the manners that have become the norm has diluted their true meanings and intentions, with rare exception. Gone is the joy, replaced by the stenches of obligation and anxiety, also with rare exceptions. 

To those who disagree with me by your actions, I commend you for being the rare exceptions that shouldn’t be so rare.