‘The best birthdays of all are those that haven’t arrived yet.’ ~Roberto Orben
 
Every year when we blow out the candles on our birthday cake, we wish for a better life. Life right now can be going well, or it can be bad. But we wish for something better. Something better still.
 
Birthdays give hope. We believe that our birthday ushers in a golden year ahead. We hope to get a better job. We hope to get a better bank balance. We look forward to spending better quality time with our partners. We hope the world understands us better. Better clothes. better house. Best friends.
 
This feeling of hope is what I find most beautiful about birthdays. As if the birthday promised to give us everything we wish for. It doesn’t matter if life is giving us a harsh treatment, we believe that everything will be better by our next birthday.
 
American poet Lucy Larcom feels the same way about birthdays,
“Whatever is gone from the past, the best is always yet to come.”
 
Robert Lynd, the Irish writer, agrees that there is no greater joy than a birthday,
“Most of us can remember a time when a birthday, especially one’s own, lit up the world as if a second sun had risen.”
 
Father Larry Lorenzoni, though he says it lightly, implies deep meaning for birthdays,
‘Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that people who have more live longer.’
 
Many of us find birthdays intensely disappointing. We long to live under the illusion of being younger; or they hate being labeled ‘in their ‘late thirties’. Believe me, apart from the figures, birthdays are much more. You can treat it as a start. Or treat is like the dawn of life rejuvenation. Or treat it as the time you will force yourself to go out and take on new challenges. And never worry about aging. After all, you can make up for ‘getting old’ by not ‘growing up’.