Another Year

The birthday is a social construct that has a certain level of importance because of how we have created the bounds of time. With every revolution of the Sun, we denote a year. Individually, it shows our age. Every year we turn one year older. But the significance of that one year, that one additional notch next to our time spent on Earth has little difference when compared to a day before, two days before, or even a month before. At an adult age, the timing of our age has to be viewed with a zoomed-out perspective. The days do not determine a big change in our age, but stacking the days, and stacking the years show significant changes. With every additional birthday, we turn “1 year older” but society puts far more importance on the singular day a birthday constitutes.

Similar to how humans view New Year’s, birthdays serve as a break and a reset point. These events are social constructs of time that offer natural reset points and breaks from the previous norms. Birthdays can be reset points because they offer a clean slate to implement change, new perspectives, and new learnings into our lives. Turning 25 you can mentally consider that you have a “fresh” year to start and have the best year of your life. You can start day one of being 25 years old on a fresh note, and look to improve what you want to do in your life. Turning one year older means very little on a day-to-day age scale, but mentally, it can be the difference that sets you up to change the rest of your life.

The importance of a birthday is far more social than being a tangible difference in your life. With the social importance, you mentally have a difference in your life you can use to make changes. But, you do not need to wait until your birthday to make any changes. Just like you do not need to wait until New Year’s, you can make a change anytime you want. The change just needs to be something that you desire to implement and have the ability to consistently work towards changing.

If you are someone who relies on the social constructs of either a birthday or New Year’s to start something, make the most of those opportunities. You can also trick your mind and use dates such as your half-birthday or the halfway point to start following the calling that you want to follow. Every birthday is “another year” of your life but that other year is not a sudden change unless you treat it as such. Will you tell yourself that you will get started next year or will you get started now? Another year is coming. Another year is starting. Another year is now.