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Birthday Pact

At D's first job after univeristy, he worked on his birthday. He came home so depressed that he vowed he would never work on his birthday again.

He said it just felt like he was robbed of 'his day'. That after the initial Happy Birthday was over with, he still had to do all the crappy things that he did every day.

I had never thought about what your birthday means as an adult until that day.

Although it is meant to signify another year gone, a new one ahead, as we get older birthdays should also be taken as a day to do whatever you want - it's your day. The one day out of the year that the universe has dedicated to you. Well, and probably thousands of others but you usually don't know them and they don't know you so no one is the wiser.

And so, I have vowed to do the same thing.

There are so many holidays that we have for many reasons - religious, ceremonial, important people's birthdays - and we take time to celebrate them in a variety of ways.

But there should be one day, out of the whole year, that you take out to celebrate yourself. Just for you.

And it's not that I'm greedy and want lots of presents or fuss, I simply want to spend the day thinking about me, my achievements, my aspirations, my goals, even trying to overcome my fears, my anxieties, my frustrations.

I think this year I'll make birthday resolutions instead of New Year's ones which never seem to last that long anyway.

And then I'll have a whole year to achieve them. An A year.

The ladies at work were asking me about when my b-day was - they do such nice things for people in the office on their birthdays - And when I told them that I wasn't going to be working that day because after university I vowed I wasn't going to work on my birthday, they all thought it was a grand idea.

And so, next Monday, I will do just exactly that. I will have a me day.

I am so excited about it. Who knew you could enjoy getting older this much?

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