Must Everyone Celebrate Anniversaries and the Like?
When you celebrate you generate positivity – but this is about you and not anyone else.
My father and stepmother got married in 1983. I was 11 years old and remember much of the event.
Despite using their anniversary for a long-lost combination lock – I nearly always forget to wish them a happy anniversary.
My mom and stepdad got married in 1994. I was 21 years old and remember the small ceremony at the synagogue. While I can tell you what month their anniversary falls in – I can’t recall the precise date.
May 1st is my wedding anniversary. To celebrate this, my wife and I tend to – at the very least – go out for a decent dinner.
This year, we’ve opted to take an actual, factual, vacation.
The thing is – I expect nobody else to celebrate with us. Why? Because this is a personal anniversary, and apart from my wife and I – it doesn’t involve anyone else.
Still, thanks to various aspects of how I was raised, it begs the question – should everyone celebrate anniversaries and the like?
We all have special dates in our lives
Everyone has a birthday. Whether you choose to do anything to mark it, however, is a whole other matter.
There are major holidays that get celebrated around the world in various ways. Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, and Rosh Hashana all come to mind.
Other major holidays are state-sponsored. Bastille Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Bank Holidays, and the like fall under this category.
And then we have what I call Hallmark Card holidays. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.
The point is that there are tons of opportunities (and in some instances excuses) to celebrate this, that, or the other thing.
Sometimes celebration is a brilliant idea. Why not do something that brings you joy?
But that touches on an important element. Celebration and joy are individual notions.
This is important to keep in mind. That’s because some people are uncomfortable celebrating certain times and things others celebrate. This is due to how the impression of the given holiday varies from person to person.
Not everyone loves Christmas, for example. Some people aren’t Christian, so they don’t celebrate it. Others have had bad experiences with the holiday, sad memories, or whatnot. And how it’s celebrated is wildly different for everyone.
Hence why celebrating special dates in our lives is a very individual notion.
You don’t need to celebrate my anniversary
Whether or not my wife and I choose to celebrate our anniversary is a matter for us. It’s strictly between her and me.
I feel this way about all anniversaries, frankly. They are utterly, wholly specific to the person(s) for whom they’re a thing.
This is also true of birthdays. Some people celebrate their birthday for the whole of the month it falls in. Others celebrate the day itself and/or the weekend it falls on. And some dislike the reminder of getting older, or other negative associations, and don’t celebrate at all.
There is no right or wrong to this. But the most important thing about that idea is that I don’t expect you to celebrate just because I do.
Some people make a lot out of things like anniversaries. I am all for celebrating your special dates – but they are about you and yours. That doesn’t mean you need to celebrate mine or vice versa.
Similarly, you need not celebrate my birthday, your birthday, any and all holidays, or anything else at all for that matter.
But when it comes to you and yourself – celebrating can be a healthy thing to do.
Generating positivity
Celebrating anything you can think of is a personal matter. The reason to celebrate is tied to good things.
Good things can bring us joy. Joy generates positivity.
This isn’t toxic positivity. Joy can always be tinged with sadness (for example, though the overall effect of a holiday might be joy, you could also feel sad for those not there who’ve passed away, and the like). Positivity in this context is about facing the positive end of the spectrum.
Celebrations might not be for everyone. But they are amazing generators of positivity. While that might be wholly personal – that doesn’t lessen it in the slightest.
And it is not selfish to celebrate something on your own or for just you. I have things – like my anniversary – that I want to celebrate that have nothing to do with anyone else (other than my wife). You most likely have things you desire to celebrate with nobody other than yourself or a specifically chosen person(s).
What and why they are doesn’t matter – save to you.
Hence, the answer to the question – should everyone celebrate anniversaries and the like – is: that depends on you and what it means to and for you.
Choosing what you desire to celebrate isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you see that celebrations are an individual preference, and not necessarily for everyone, you can choose to celebrate whatever it is – or not. Knowing that it’s not selfish to choose to celebrate something – publicly or privately – you can choose how to celebrate and generate positivity within your given celebration.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Then that can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-eighty-second entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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