By Tan Yan Qi (26S06M)
Receiving 12am birthday texts from your close friends, chain birthday messages in class chats, singing happy birthday in school, then again at night, and cutting the cake before going to bed to end the day.
That’s how birthdays often go for most our age.
Birthdays are a whole event of their own. In many religions and cultures, they hold special meaning. In China, people eat longevity noodles to wish for a long life. In Korea, it’s seaweed soup. In Mexico, Quinceañeras are held on a girl’s 15th birthday to celebrate her entry into womanhood. And in RGS, students had their very own version of a birthday song.
Out of the 365 days in a year, there is one day that belongs to you–your birthday. On that very fated day, you came into this world, and your life began (pro-lifers may disagree). Birthdays exist as a reminder of where you started and how far you’ve come. They are a time for loved ones to come together to express their gratitude for your presence on this earth.
Sweet, isn’t it? But what happens when a day that’s supposed to be yours, and all for yourself, doesn’t feel like yours?
A Childhood Staple
As a kid, I would wake up on my birthday feeling excited, knowing that my mother would wish me happy birthday first thing in the morning, knowing that there was a cake sitting in the fridge for me, and knowing that there were presents waiting to be gifted to me. It was a day that always brought me joy, for it felt like that day revolved around me and only me.
I’ve only ever had one birthday party in my life, when I was 9 years old. I invited friends over to my home in the evening, splashed around in the pool, and enjoyed barbecue for dinner. I remember the excitement of having a table full of gifts just for me, and the thrill of blowing out the candles while my friends and family clapped for me as if I had just accomplished a huge feat.
Feeling important is a feeling one can easily get addicted to. With people celebrating your existence, it can easily start to feel like a validation that you matter to them. It is delighting to know that your friends remember your birthday, and gratifying when people go out of their way to celebrate your birthday. The extravagance of birthdays, eventually, becomes a marker of how important you are to others.
But soon that delight turns to disappointment, and gratitude becomes a sigh of relief.
Cold Turkey: The Coming of Age Experience
The “birthday effect” is a statistical phenomenon that shows that people are more likely to die on their birthdays–a portion of whom choose to take their own lives. At first glance, it may seem odd. But think about it a little more, and you can see why.
As children become teenagers, teenagers become adults, and adults become elderly, the purpose and meaning that birthdays hold start to change. Just as a child eventually learns that Santa Claus is fake, we eventually learn that perhaps…we aren’t as important as birthdays make us feel.
Parents start to put in less effort. Friends forget about them amidst the hectic school life. Even you, too, may start to feel disdain towards birthdays—a day that is supposed to be yours, but never will truly be.
Complement that with the posts you see on Instagram of peers celebrating their birthdays with a large friend group, all dressed up and happy, hugging two golden balloons with their age on them. Suddenly, your birthday with a small cake, a couple of obligatory happy birthdays, and a day that just isn’t going your way, feels miserable in comparison.
In the past, whenever I made a birthday wish, it would be something like “I want a [insert something I was obsessed with at that point in time]”. It could range from a room makeover, to a new toy, or a good PSLE score that one year when I was twelve. But over the years, my wishes have become increasingly similar.
“I wish to be happy no matter what happens.”
There comes a turning point in your adolescence when excitement from turning a year older morphs into dread. “I’m one year older!” becomes “Oh, I’m one year older already”. Back then, being a year older meant I was one step closer to freedom. Now, every passing second on the clock feels like another chain wrapped around my ankles, dragging me closer to the unavoidable darkness that lies beneath.
Birthdays become a sign of growing pains. What is meant to be a day of appreciation becomes a day of disappointment. Every little inconvenience feels like another jab at you, as if the world is trying to say, “you don’t matter”. And then comes the realisation that perhaps in the past year, you seemed to have accomplished, well, nothing.
At some point, the candles on an increasingly crowded cake start to come dangerously close to each other, the flickering flames burning as brightly as they are dangerous.
(Un)lucky Birthday
The truth is, birthdays are no different from any other day in your life. They do not have to be, and they will not always be. The skies will not be blue just for you, the bus will not stop just for you, and the worksheet sitting in your file will not be magically completed just for you. No miracles will occur on your birthday, as much as we wish “birthday luck” were a real thing.
The idea of birthday luck may seem harmless, but it can be detrimental at times. Birthday luck is simply our most desperate way of wishing for the universe to validate our existence. People are sometimes too eager to attribute any positive news or good occurrences on their birthday to birthday luck, like receiving a good grade, or even catching your phone before it falls.
Attributing anything and everything to birthday luck on your birthday undermines the effort put into achieving your goal. A good grade isn’t the result of birthday luck—it’s the result of hours you spent studying and preparing for the test instead of doomscrolling on your phone. Believing in birthday luck is having false confidence in the twisted probability of fate to make your birthday a smooth-sailing, worry-free one, instead of ensuring it for yourself. And when fate doesn’t do that favour for you, that’s when expectations fall short.
We’re looking for the wrong things
Daily life is mundane. While there might be some moments of excitement, and others of despair, our journey does not always look like a rollercoaster of emotions. Sometimes, it might look like a flat road; other times, we might see more drops than peaks in the future ahead. This isn’t new information—it’s part and parcel of life.
But when a day of celebration now turns into an indicator of self-worth that doesn’t seem to even come close to others’, when we are taught that our worth depends on others’ love for you, when what was meant to be a peak in your life ends up feeling like a low, it completely and utterly strips any joy away from what should be celebrated.
Any celebrated day, like Children’s Day, Mothers’ Day, or Fathers’ Day, is simply an avenue for appreciation. It’s more of a formality, a way to encourage people to show gratitude. But more often than not, the quiet little displays of kindness and gratitude that your loved ones show you on a daily basis are far louder than a noisy party popper in a crowded function room. Yet these are the things that are most often overlooked.
If you’re struggling to find peace on your birthdays, here’s a challenge: Instead of counting the number of people who wished you happy birthday, why not try looking inward? Look back on the past year, see how far you’ve come–and how much you’ve grown. Growth can sometimes seem invisible. But the fact that you’re still here, even after all the obstacles life has thrown your way, is growth enough.
It’s easy to receive gratitude from others, yet infinitely hard to show yourself the same grace. The worst thing to do on a day celebrating your existence is to let others define it for you. Be at peace with existence without expectation, because nobody needs to prove that they’re worthy enough to have lived another year. So let your birthday be a day of self reflection, of appreciation, and a chance to look towards what the future has to bring. Let the future not be one of impending doom, but one of possibilities.
To anyone who happens to be reading this on their birthday, happy birthday! And know that even if things haven’t been going your way, it is never too late to rewrite the day for yourself.
