Review: Why celebrate birthdays ?

I’m 20 now.
Here’s everything I did for the past year.

Earlier back in eleventh grade on someone’s birthday, our Mathematics Lecturer asked us the reason for celebrating someone’s birthday.

“Because they’ve finished another year alive”, we said.

He asked, “Why is that a reason to celebrate ?

“What exactly have you done today that you didn’t do last year or the year before right back until when you were born ?”

“What is the difference between a newborn and you today ?”

He explained,

“We need to learn, adapt and improvise on what we already have today.
We’ve learnt a ton that we didn’t know before. We’re evolving.
Just existing doesn’t help.
Even a newborn exists, eats, breathes, poops and cries.”

What about you is it that draws the line of differentiation from the day you were born?

Each day is 1/365th of what comprises a year.
Each hour is 1/85560th of a 356 day year.

“Growing older doesn’t mean you’ve grown smarter, matured or done anything in general. A birthday is a timer. How well you utilize your time makes all the difference”, he said.

He insisted on celebrating failures, learning moments, and situations where we reach out to greater responsibilities; because at that very moment, we’re growing.
Birthdays are a very poor choice of measuring time for one it is inaccurate to judge anything and quite irrelevant to gauge our progress.

We’re evolving from what used to be just a mindless lump of flesh in a mother’s womb.

We’re evolving, not just existing.

I made a couple of resolutions this year, 2017.

Some of them are:

• To be physically active and take care of my health properly.
• To upskill myself such that I can provide more value to the society.
• To be part of the world’s 1%
• To read books and learn from what others have already tried/understood
• To justify, audit and account for the time that has elapsed since
• To develop a writing habit and reach a wider audience

I shall cover my journey for the year 2017 in a different article, but this article aims to convey one of the many motivations behind holding myself accountable to my responsibilities.

I’ve been keeping myself active throughout. I’ve definitely become much more technically sound from a year ago. I did read a couple of books this year that helped a ton. I audit my calendar 6 months at a time to improvise and have also written my thoughts, ideas, learnings on medium this past year.
I’m not part of the world’s 1% yet but I’m certainly a lot closer than when I first started.

I do owe Tim Draper and Gary Vaynerchuk big time for being a source of inspiration.

Hadn’t I gone to Draper University or come across Gary Vaynerchuk’s social media, I probably wouldn’t have even started.

We are the average of the five people we surround ourselves with.

I’d like to thank everyone I’ve had the opportunity of interacting with and learning from over the course of these 20 long years. It feels like a lifetime.
An integral chunk of who I am today is because my parents, friends, family and my innermost circle.

As much as I’d like to be able to thank everyone in person, I cannot,
However, thank you for being a part of my life.
Thanks for being there.
Cheers!

— Prahalad Belavadi