Birthday Anxiety: A Millennial's Guide to Finding Peace When You're Supposed to Be Celebrating
It was my birthday last Tuesday, and I spent it lying on the sofa watching trash TV, cuddling with Calli, my dog. If this had been any other day, it probably would have been glorious, but because it was my birthday, it had an unsettling undertone that got worse and worse as the hours passed.
I don't know about you, but I find birthdays to be funny ol' days - especially for millennial overthinking introverts, like yours truly.
The Birthday Pressure Trap
There's the pressure aspect - this day comes round only once a year, so it should be special, right? So, you spend the better part of the few weeks coming up to it engrossed in websites telling you what a wonderful time you'll have eating this fancy food, drinking these quirky drinks, experiencing this fun thing, or that exciting thing. There's too much choice! Instead of this process being fun, it's suddenly another chore.
Speaking of pressure, who do you want to be there? Your family - maybe they're not in the same city, or even country. Can you be bothered organizing your equally frantic millennial friends who fall in holes of jobs and babies only to emerge and say for the fifth time that you "should meet up soon" before disappearing again? And oh my, can you take being the center of attention and feeling responsible for everyone having a good time?
The Comparison Spiral
Then there's the time passing aspect. Birthdays work well to uncover those deep dark fears like whether you're where you should be in life, whether you're really happy, whether there's anything you can do about it all. You compare yourself to your friend who's making 100k, to your other friend who's traveling the world, and to David Bowie who was 25 when he released Ziggy Stardust.
The Guilt Complex
And then there's the the-world-is-crumbling-and-I'm-so-self-centred aspect. I don't have to start talking about everything that's going wrong in the world and about how every day it feels more and more like we've all woken up in a new Black Mirror episode - spend a few minutes on any news or social media page and it will speak for itself. How dare you think about having a good time on your birthday when all this (gestures vaguely around) is happening?
Mindfulness Tools for the Anxious Birthday Person
So - where does that all leave you? What helps me and the people I work with is thinking about a few things (and yes, they're not nuclear physics, but honestly, how often do you forget about them)?
1. Utility, Action, Unhooking
What is helpful for you right now? If you're spending ages choosing something, maybe just set yourself a deadline to make a decision - done is better than perfect. If you're not sure how much energy you have asking people to join, think about how you can spend the least energy on this - copy/paste text etc. If you're comparing yourself to others (and despairing), or feeling guilty for thinking about yourself because the world is essentially ending, is that really helping?
2. Mindfulness Practice
Now to get to the point where you can ask yourself this stuff, you need to first realize you're doing the unhelpful things, right? So - you need to notice what your mind and body are doing, every moment. Mindfulness, I say. Look it up. Or better yet, look me up and I'll help. ;-)
3. Values Clarification
Maybe you don't know how to decide what is helpful - that's where investigating what kind of person you want to be in the midst of all that's happening comes in.
4. Focus Your Energy Where It Matters
Circle of control, circle of influence, acceptance. It's easy to spend so much time lamenting the state of things that you can physically not change or influence. So focus on those things about which you can do something. Simples. Not easy though, and I get it.
I mean, I felt sorry for myself just last Tuesday. And I guess writing this blog post was part of what I could do about it, so maybe some lost souls stumble upon it and it helps somehow. Now I'll go cuddle my dog. Take care of yourself!
