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Birthday Changes

Earlier this month, I celebrated my birthday.  I am significantly closer to 50 than 40 and closer to 60 than 30, 70 than 20, etc.  I don't mind aging - both inevitable and not necessarily a factor in happiness.

One of the things that I love about birthdays is the outreach done by acquaintances - friends from childhood, distant relatives, former co-workers, etc. - to wish you a happy birthday.  Many of those are done on social media given the birthday reminders.  Nonetheless, someone still takes a few seconds to wish you a happy birthday and, I think, are generally sincere.  I always pick a few that I will then call or email or message and re-acquaint with them.

This year, as a little experiment, I removed my birthday from my social media accounts.  It did remain on LinkedIn by accident.  Just wanted to see who all were just using social media as reminders versus knew or had some other tracking mechanism for birthdays.

The results were a significant, and dare I say dramatic, reduction in birthday wishes.  Totally fine.  I am not here to pass judgement on anyone that previous used Facebook birthdays to wish me a happy birthday and missed this year.  

I don't blame people and to be honest, I could not have told you the birthdays of very many people close to / around me.  So, I use this experiment as a motivation for myself to change the following: 

  • For people that matter, put their birthdays on my calendar.
  • Call people or write lengthy messages or send a birthday card - do something more than post a message on someone's social media wall.
People have to do what is right for them and what their schedule allows.  But hoping this helps me to have more meaningful connections with people and celebrate them on their birthdays!
***






The delicious, peanut butter-inspired birthday cake made by two very special people for me.

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