THEY SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY!

As you ponder possible New Year’s resolutions this month, consider this new spin on birthdays. Imagine that today it’s your birthday (and if it is today, congratulations!). There’s a big party tonight, but you’re the one who made all the arrangements and sent the invitations. Your guests begin to arrive and when they walk in, they see a table already piled high with gifts – for them!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our birthdays were times for giving presents to other people who mean so much in our lives? Although gift-giving is associated with several holidays throughout the year, those days are usually meant for religious or spiritual observation, and presents have become an almost obligatory commercial aspect of an otherwise “holy” time.

If everyone GAVE presents on their birthdays, we’d have lots of days throughout the year with unexpected gifts! And each person would only have to shop for everyone else on one day a year! No more having to remember everyone’s “special day” – you make it special by simply remembering the day YOU were born!

This way, you could make your birthday truly wonderful by using it to make others feel special too. In reciprocity, of course, the more friends you have, then the more unexpected gifts would come your way throughout the year! We could all use the day of our birth to say “Thank you!” to those who made our year so wonderful, and to express our hopes and wishes for the upcoming year. Even those curmudgeons who hate celebrating their birthdays may find some joy in this new concept!

Lewis Carroll planted the idea of “un-birthdays” in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” gleefully observing that there are 364 days throughout the year for un-birthdays! We could start a new movement, like the “Random Acts of Kindness” or “Pay It Forward” ➡ campaigns of recent times.

When your birthday rolls around, consider making your friends and family feel special. Then who knows when you’ll get an unexpected surprise from a friend celebrating their birthday! You just might start something!