A friend of mine recently asked me how I felt about my birthday this year. She clarified her question by sharing that she usually feels stressed when her day of birth rolls around. She shared that she usually had certain expectations for the year that is coming to a close and often spends time analyzing whether or not she’s met them. If not the year specifically, she explained, the age range.
I think we can all relate to that on some level, no matter our personality. The notion that we feel like we should have done ‘x’ by a certain point in our lives. What that is comprised of remains a mostly personalized experience, though certainly there are societal norms that impose certain guidelines on us. Like: We are meant to have met a significant other, perhaps had children, perhaps purchased a home, perhaps reached a certain career level by a particular age. And if not, then we are meant to have an explanation for our detour. What derailed you, exactly? Bad relationship? Tanking economy? Poor health? More importantly, what are you doing to try and get back on track? Therapy? Online dating? A vitamin and fitness regimen?
Now, I think more and more of us are starting to define our own existence and what that looks like for us in a very personal way, but there is no question that those norms still haunt us, and will, for some time. So, I think it’s foolish to outright ignore them.
And, if those artificially generated milestones aren’t stressful enough, we usually layer on our own notion of what any particular point in our life span should look like. Promotions at work, marathons run, countries visited. We spend long stretches in the coulda, shoulda, woulda- maybe did and maybe didn’t. Or sometimes, we’ve achieved a prescribed or bespoke goal, and somehow, we find fault with that too.
I got promoted but didn’t get the raise I wanted. I ran a marathon but it wasn’t the time I had hoped for. I visited ten countries, but I was hoping I would have gotten to fifteen.
Before you think it, this is not a post where I encourage you to abandon all sense of goals. No way. I am a goal-oriented person to the max. I spend a substantial amount of time wondering what I’m going to aspire to next. But what if we were kinder to ourselves? What would that look like? What if we called it ‘doing the best I could’ instead of ‘I failed’ or ‘almost good enough’?
Well, for starters, we’d have to stop comparing ourselves to other people. Pause here. Stop yourself from telling me (or the universe) that you never compare yourself to others. We all do. Really. I don’t care how enlightened you claim to be. This is part of the human condition and I am absolutely certain that we all experience it in one way or another.
I was at the airport recently and I saw a young woman wearing sweats and a t-shirt. She looked comfortable and cute. Then, I saw a woman similarly aged walk up to the gate wearing a skirt with a blouse and flats. I witnessed the woman wearing the sweats look at the skirted woman, and then look down at her plane attire. I didn’t know either of these women, so I can only speculate as to the thought process. Perhaps the woman in the sweats suddenly felt like her outfit was too casual. Perhaps, she thought the other woman was overdressed. I don’t believe she didn’t think anything at all, based upon the self-check I saw being performed. What’s my point? Well, there was some modicum of comparison in that teeny bit of human interaction. There was a thought of one human’s outfit for an occasion versus another. That particular thought process might be avoidable for some, but likely, there is another situation where they find themselves thinking in a similar fashion. Because, we are human.
And of course, the world has a smattering of narcissists and those struggling with mental illness, and people who are outright mean, but I believe that there is also a large population of humans who are far harder on themselves than anyone else they come into contact with, hands down.
Great, who cares, right? Well, I do. But, it’s more than that. I don’t just want to throw out my very personal observation of human behavior without exploring how I think we can manipulate it to our benefit and for our own personal growth. That would be silly, no?
I would love to tell you that we should all just be nicer to ourselves all the time. Really. Let’s all decide to just be more forgiving, more open-minded, less judgmental, and less harsh, okay? Sure, but also, let’s be realistic. What if we started by allowing our birthday to be a celebration? Not one that others have to spearhead. Nope. Our own. What if we allowed ourselves to escape comparison for a day. One day. One single day. What would that look like?
You don’t have to think you are the most spectacular creature on the planet that day, though certainly you can, but maybe you just think to yourself that you’ve done okay so far. You are doing okay, and that is okay. And everyone is okay.
I have a new found fondness for Chef’s Table on Netflix. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend. This season is pizza and the opening episode on Chef Chris Bianco is beautiful. Gorgeous. I have more to say on that, but I am mentioning it right now because it’s relevant to this wrap up. Chef Bianco runs into a rather serious career obstacle at a formidable time in his career. He talks about the idea of not knowing his worth in this world outside of his contributions professionally. He ponders how he will have a meaningful existence when making such a profoundly impactful shift.
I’m not going to give anything away here, or at least not this go around. Maybe next time. I’m just going to say this- health fails and people come and go (mostly) and careers rise and tank. The pieces of us that are fundamentally us, do not change. Our ability to work hard in some capacity and be good humans and have compassion (for ourselves and others) and keep perspective, does not change, unless we allow it. Our self-worth is not contingent upon what we’ve done and how much money we’ve made and how many children we’ve birthed or raised, or what races we’ve won or what we own.
So, this birth year, I’m going to pledge to be holistically me. No bells and whistles, no goals analysis, no stress. Just lil ol’ living, breathing, loving, nice, me.
Any interest in joining?
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