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A Musing on Birthdays (Mine Specifically)

Nate Chai
Nate Chai
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

Before we begin I wanted to say a huge thank you to all the PMs, WhatsApps, and posts on my wall for my birthday. My phone started buzzing at 12:01 (Wayne Buchner wins the prize for first well wisher) and hasn’t stopped since. It’s easy to forgot how NICE people are!

The reason I wanted to let you know how grateful I am upfront is because I’m going to spend the next, however long this is, musing on why I have an odd relationship with my birthday.

Whilst we typically see a birthday as a celebration, I find them a lot more confrontational than that. Another reminder of my eventual mortality. Around my birthday I start to look at my life and judge where I am and what I’ve done.

When I turned 23, I was working as an editor in a well-known B2B Tech Publication and the Tech spaces “30 under 30” came out. This article listed the 30 “most amazing” people under 30 working in the tech space.

I was mortified to see that I wasn’t on the list.

Panic struck.

If I WASN’T on this list then what was the point of my entire life?

So, I did what any pained narcissist would do to get some compliments…I called my grandmother.

“Grandma, I’m not on the 30 under 30 list! What were you doing when you were 24?”

“Well, I’d just had your mother”

“Ah, right…”

Really puts things in perspective, right?

My next birthday was pretty incredible, my then girlfriend booked a hotel room in Central Seoul (South Korea) took me to the best Burger restaurant in town and showered me with socks and t-shirts (practical and I needed them), as well as an adult colouring book and pencils. I thought I’d got it made. I was making a tonne of money freelance writing and worked half as many hours at my teaching job and got paid double everyone else.

Of course, she broke up with me 11 months later.

Still reeling from the break-up, my 25th birthday consisted of me drinking an entire bottle of bourbon whilst a close friend and I slacklined (it’s like a rope you walk across between two trees) at the local park. We went back to his and played video games, I crashed on his sofa and I managed not to cry until I was sure he was asleep.

My next birthday the crying started much earlier.

A close friend of mine and I went on a cycling adventure along the Thames. It turned into an unofficial pub crawl (naturally, I hadn’t learned my lesson about the bourbon). We spent the day cycling and got all the way from Barnes to Kingston (pathetically close-by for a bike ride) and watched Spider-man: Homecoming. We cycled back to Barnes and sat in a pub, the warm air made for a comfortable outdoor drinking experience.

“Look at all these fucking people!” I began my tirade, “They have every opportunity in the world and they just waste it on caring what other people think.”

I paused as the tears started streaming down my face.

“They could change the world if they wanted to, they’ve got the money, they’ve got the skills, but they just won’t fucking push themselves.”

This continued for a solid 20 minutes before my friend wisely said, “Let’s go home shall we?”

I then continued ranting at my sister and her fiance.

Of course, I wasn’t angry at these other people, I was furious with myself. I’d been running my business for close to a year by that point and felt like I was getting nowhere. I’d put myself under an enormous amount of pressure to “Always hustle” and was desperately stuck in a “Sleep is for the weak” mentality.

What I guess I’m saying is that every one of my recent birthdays…weren’t the best experiences. At 23 I was entitled, at 24 I was complacent, at 25 I was…well I’ll give myself a pass on that one, I mean she had broken up with me literally 11 days prior. At 26 I felt impotent.

Which brings us to today. I’ve so far had three birthday celebrations and not cried once.

I went camping with my friends a couple of weekends ago.

Last weekend my girlfriend made me enchiladas and we had an amazing “duvet day” (a day where you hang-out, eat good food, and watch Netflix).

And today, I’m writing out my “27 for 27” goal list. 27 things that I’m going to do this year to make this one the best ever.

I guess what I’m saying is that this is the first year in which I’m seeing the confrontational nature of my birthday as a positive thing. Instead of running away from the fact that I’m getting older, I’m trying to accept that fact and proactively indulge in the wonder of growing as a human.

Thank you to everyone I’ve met on my journey, you’re all so weird (in a good way) and wonderful. It’s an honour and a privilege to have spent this last year getting to know you all and I can’t wait to experience all the amazing things that are just waiting for us to experience together.

#ThePowerofStorySelling #MakePersonalBrandingPersonal

Nate Chai
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