Tag: celebration

  • Celebrate Life

    Celebrate Life

    It’s that time of the year when everyone is talking about resolutions for change in their lives, and many are judging me for not giving a damn about the fuss. Don’t click away yet. This is not a rant or a pity party. It’s a genuine attempt to offer you an alternate perspective on all of this.

    It’s easy to assume that I’m jaded for not feeling festive in the festive season, or for not counting down the seconds to the new year. But I’m not jaded. In fact, I’d like to argue that people who do celebrate such token events are in fact the jaded ones. No, really, read on before dismissing this.

    There are two ways of considering what it means to be jaded. The first and more common view is someone that finds little reason to celebrate life. The other view suggests that it is someone that sticks to routine from fear of facing the unknown. I’m neither. But most of you are either one or both. Here’s why.

    Routine is not only a daily thing. It’s any cycle that is fixed. So when you plan your life around these fixed cycles, you lose spontaneity, and you lose creativity, both of which are core to living with passion. So when you wait for an occasion to present itself before you celebrate life, you’re in a routine. You wait for birthdays before making someone feel special, or you wait for new year’s day before declaring your desire to improve your life.

    What if you didn’t wait. What if you didn’t live long enough for the next occasion that you were planning to celebrate? What then? The unexpected gift, to others or to yourself, is far more intriguing and appreciated than the gift planned for a year in advance. The sense of entitlement and the sense of disappointment that goes with a specific occasion when it is celebrated or forgotten respectively, undermines good relationships, and wastes a good life.

    The fact that the majority of celebrated occasions are simply token dates marked on a calendar without any substance further confirms its superficial nature. Go out of your way to break the routine and show your sincerity in a deliberate act of appreciation or gratitude, and not one prompted by a calendar reminder, and see how much deeper your connection with people will be.

    Celebrate because you have privileges and options that you take for granted every other day. Celebrate because you felt heartened by an unexpected gesture or a sense of good fortune. Celebrate because you have excess that you can share with others. If you’re reading this, then celebrate because you have more than probably 60% of the world’s population.

    Waiting for someone to give you permission to celebrate the good in your life is no different to waiting for a specific date before acknowledging the gift of someone in your life. Be spontaneous. Be sincere. Just don’t be shallow and follow the herd.

    Who’s jaded now?

  • Orphaned

    I’ve found that the most unassuming leaders and role models are the ones with the greatest impact. They are not the ones that are celebrated from the pulpits. In fact, from the pulpits is where you will find them despised or judged. But that is not a testament to their being, instead it is an indictment against the bearers of those stations.

    Seeing a father celebrated tonight left me ambivalent, as the subject of fatherhood often does. I looked across at one whose father was taken away at a young age. I saw the fight to maintain composure dull the eyes that was just a minute ago filled with the enthusiasm of youth. But even in that there is a blessing that I struggle to relate to, and I wonder if those that have lost truly appreciate the gravity of the grounding point that they have in life, even if only for those few short years beyond which they may understandably feel cheated out of a lifetime of love and affection, not least of all the wisdom that often accompanies such a presence.

    Oddly enough it really is the presence more than the conscious efforts of fatherhood that appear to leave the most powerful impressions. Perhaps in that presence I can relate,  but not much beyond. I often recall the words of a man I once met when he described the influence his father offered in his life. He recounted how he awoke every morning to see his father sit comfortably in his favourite armchair reading the newspaper, allowing all about him to continue uninterrupted, but equally uninterested. It was that scene that prompted him to be more than his father ever was, to him or to those around him. That is a reality I can relate to.

    But tonight was a reminder for more than just that. I found myself questioning my views about celebrating life versus celebrating occasions and witnessed first hand how people that I have anyways recognised and admired for living a full life seemed to be galvanised by the occasion of marking a milestone in a life fully lived. Perhaps they, like me, don’t recognise the amount of life they live. Perhaps they too, looking from the inside through the lenses that filter their reality, may not recognise the amount of life they have lived relative to the struggles and loss that scarred their landscape.

    The reality I’m faced with is that life is not separate from the bad times, or the occasions. Celebrating the occasions in the absence of celebrating life at least gives us speckles of appreciation even though I still spurn the distraction it causes in its wake. Contemplating all this, including some unexpected interactions this evening gnaws away at yet another old companion that I’ve held dear for so long. Jadedness is spawned by bitterness. It’s a response needed to dull the ache that a lost youth and an absent father etches into our distorted view of what promise the world holds. It’s this same distortion that often sees us fighting battles that exist only in our minds.

    Maybe the fatigue of being me is suddenly not a fatigue, but instead it is a surrender to a reality that was self imposed. Self imposed or not, it is still my reality. Tonight, sitting here, isolated in my thoughts, surrounded by the warmth of an extended family of whom only a select few I have ever connected with but still feeling the familiarity of a blood line I am tied to in spite of my exclusion for reasons unknown to any of us, I find my soul oddly consoled, yet still restless. But it’s a fading restlessness, even if just for tonight.

    Perhaps my jaded soul will learn what it means to feel human after all. Perhaps not.

  • Apparently, it’s my birthday…

    Everyone knows my disdain for such an occasion, yet most still find reason to wish me for it. I’m not sure if that is a testament to their sincerity, or do they just like taunting me. In fact, the latter is probably entirely called for given how often I enjoy taking digs at others about literally anything and everything. My only contention is that this should not be limited to a single day in the year. We forget to celebrate life when we celebrate occasions, but I’ve repeated this so many times over the years that it’s almost starting to sound clichéd to me.

    So if you must, and I say that with absolute affection, then celebrate the advent of the beginning of my torment by meaningfully engaging with me about the things that I am passionate about. Read through my blog and challenge my ideas. Test the veracity of the logic that I proclaim and force me to consider a fresh perspective. Give me a reason to believe that what I am passionate about contributing is in fact a meaningful contribution, and if it’s not, then show me the kindness of making me aware of it so that I may redirect my energies towards that which is more valuable, rather than continuing to ramble about inane philosophical ideals that merely tickle our curiosity but sways none towards a wholesome existence.

    The prompted gift is laced with doubt, but the unexpected gift is smothered in sincerity. Birthdays and other similar occasions that are intended to celebrate our appreciation for those around us simply distract us from their worth the rest of the year. I want to be remembered in a fleeting moment when something that touches you reminds you of me because I may have contributed to that moment of beauty in a way that I might not be aware of. I want to be remembered because when you made that tough decision, you recalled a perspective that I shared with you which empowered you to rise above your struggles and instead saw the opportunity for growth and fulfiment which made my failure meaningful rather than futile.

    Don’t remember me because the occasion calls for it, remember me because my memory calls for an occasion to be celebrated. I don’t have the promise of eternal life, and you don’t have the promise of eternal time to reciprocate everything that you’re grateful for. So waiting for that moment that is prompted, or waiting for the perfect time, or the perfect gift only depletes that which you promised yourself you would celebrate by not taking it for granted. Life. It’s what happens when we’re waiting for it to happen. It is the journey, not the destination, nor the way points. It is every breath you take, not every breath that is taken from you when the occasion calls for it. The way points are milestones towards death. The way points are our moments of pause when we believe predetermined occasions are a celebration of life. The way points caresses our inclination towards procrastination because we convince ourselves that putting something off until a future date that is predetermined by others is in fact progress and not procrastination.

    Celebrate life with me, and let birthdays be the silent death of mediocrity and distraction, while every breath inspires every step, and every step is forward even if preceded by a fall. Wait for tomorrow only if today is not possible, not because tomorrow is a tag on your calendar.