Why do adults celebrate birthdays?

Birth­day seems to be a turn­ing point that divides life into peri­ods of “before” and “after”.

It’s like your per­son­al, per­son­al New Year, when you sum up the mini-results: what has already been done, what remains to be done and whether you are sat­is­fied with the way things are today, can you call your­self a hap­py per­son or whether soci­ety con­sid­ers you , for many it remains today an impor­tant, already held and wor­thy per­son. Not all of us want to take this exam and ask our­selves all these ques­tions. Because not always, what we aspired to and what we want­ed, we get in life, we real­ize. So why spoil your mood and arrange such a cel­e­bra­tion of life?

Any per­son has the right to be sad on his birth­day, but you should not com­plete­ly refuse to cel­e­brate. Sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence con­firms that the hol­i­day shapes our under­stand­ing of our­selves and our lives, helps us feel less anx­ious and feel hap­pi­er. In what way? It’s sim­ple, a birth­day for an adult is one of the moti­va­tors to change some­thing in your life, whether you like it or not, but you think about your life and sum up some results. And, sec­ond­ly, most often a birth­day can be asso­ci­at­ed with some­thing already famil­iar to you, and this caus­es a feel­ing of calm­ness and a pleas­ant rel­ish of the hol­i­day, with some well-estab­lished rit­u­als that are per­ma­nent and manda­to­ry for such a hol­i­day, like a cake with can­dles, wish­es and toasts in hon­or of the hero of the occa­sion and, of course, pre­sen­ta­tion of gifts. It’s like the New Year — Olivi­er, tan­ger­ines and mak­ing wish­es to the sound of chimes.

The pre­dictabil­i­ty of such a hol­i­day helps to main­tain a sense of con­trol over life and cope with every­day stress.

Change your atti­tude to a won­der­ful hol­i­day, like a birth­day: the mean­ing is in human­i­ty and love, and not in sum­ming up. And by cel­e­brat­ing your birth­day, you acknowl­edge that you deserve to live and be loved. Think more about this and less about what you sup­pos­ed­ly should have already achieved, but have not achieved.

Birth­day is not worth spend­ing alone. If noisy par­ties are not to your lik­ing, arrange a cham­ber meet­ing with one or two close peo­ple. Cel­e­brate this hol­i­day with joy, laugh­ter and smiles, and do not serve “duty”, because this is a spe­cial day in the life of every per­son and no mat­ter how old you are. Life is one, so enjoy it and be hap­py!