Birthdays are considered sacred days that must be ever so precise and perfect. No sadness or harm is supposed to come to anyone on their birthday. But beyond this traditionally perfect day, what is the true reason behind celebrating?

The first of many reasons, and also the most common, would be to celebrate the day on which an amazing and beautiful life has entered this world. We shower this person with loving thoughts and gifts to illustrate the love we share for this person. Or, birthdays are celebrated, although uncommonly, to recognize the mother and her hard work giving labor, raising, and loving this person that stands before us today.

Birthdays could also be celebrated to serve as a milestone for the particular ages and what they symbolize in a person’s life. The typical milestones would, of course, be 15, 16, 18, 21, 30, 49, and 50. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with these ages and what they symbolize in society then let me break it down for you. 15 is for those whose culture recognizes girls turning into young women. 16 is the mainstream American version of this. 18 is the age in which you can smoke unless you live in California who recently denied youth this coming of age right. 21 is when you can finally (and I emphasize finally because in most countries this happens way back in the teenage years) drink and smoke if again, you live in the strict state of California. 30 is the “holy shit I’m getting old age” but in reality, you're still young. 49 is the “damn next year half of my life has gone by”. And 50, as I’ve heard, doesn't actually feel too bad and therefore has been coined “fabulous 50”.

But enough about what birthdays could mean and more about what birthdays actually mean. When turning any age at all, a simple yet complex question is asked and the answer is for the most part, always the same unless it is on a milestone birthday. The question is this: how does it feel to be “insert age”? And the answer is almost always, it feels the same. The conversation usually stops there, but recently I have had a birthday, June 27th to be exact. I was asked this question and I answered just as I had answered it many times before: it feels the same. But I did not let it stop there. No, I thought about this question and this answer that have both been said so many times before and will be said so many times afterward until I realized why this question was being asked and why the answer was always the same. People had no idea why we celebrate birthdays!

Now to explain this theory I have to explain why the response is always the same. Not feeling any different on a birthday is because when it is your birthday, you don’t go to sleep one person and wake up another. There is no magical transformation that suddenly makes you the age you are. Birthdays are celebrated to recognize that over the past year, this person had grown up and achieved many things. On the sacred birthday, we are not celebrating a number, we are celebrating every single day before that number that made this person grow. So when asked how it feels, naturally people say it doesn’t feel any different because in fact, why should it? We reach our maturity before the day we celebrate it. Maturity comes from may different things, often struggles, tragedies, and sacrifices, and it simply does not make sense to bust out the cake and party favors as you have to forgo a family Christmas to be able to pay for your cat’s medical bills. Birthdays are a sacred set day to celebrate this maturity that has developed through the year, without the interruptions of real life.

So when people ask: how does it feel? They truly don’t know that birthdays are not the real catalysts for change, but instead personal growth and development are. Now with all of this in mind, I do assure you that I had a very happy birthday this past June 27th, not because I did much that was very special, but because this past year I’ve experienced and achieved so much to be proud about. And now you know, the key to a happy birthday, is a life lived well that is worth the celebration.