birthdays?

The following excerpt is from the infamous comedy series Seinfeld. For those of you who don’t know about the show, it’s about a few friends trying to go about their routine life and the problems they face, to which many of us can easily relate. In one of the episodes where George meets a Chinese lawyer, I couldn’t help but indulge myself in a comical yet very captivating thought about how people treat birthdays. Those loiters who are bored by now can amuse themselves with the music player at the bottom of the page. So here it goes:

[Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and
how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better
self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not
to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are
to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.]


Birthday off course can be a grim reminder of how life just went on by another year. Instead of beating ourselves down for wasting another year, I’m sure the religious ones amongst us would concur that we should be thankful we got to live another year. Are we not responsible for how we choose to indulge ourselves and how we spend our time? Sure, you must deal with whatever luck throws your way, but who is to blame for the guy who spends all his days locked in a basement just because he is too lazy to get out or has a serious confidence problem? Where does the blame lie when a girl becomes obsessive about non-issue things like some stranger not wanting to be friends with her?
How our days go by depend largely in part on our priorities and what we stress about. I’ve seen many people enjoy their lives even in the toughest of times. So is it always luck or is it us too? Are we just robots leading lives according to a script written for us or do we make things better or worse for ourselves?

That’s it for my useless drivel. Now, what’s your take?