Small Celebrations

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People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Source: The Wisdom of Heschel

I am terrible at celebrations.

I just cannot celebrate festivals, birthdays, promotions, new jobs, graduations. Part of me thinks they are unnecessary. Another part thinks that I do not deserve to celebrate. Whatever be the reason, I sucked at it.

I grew up with the philosophy that doing things for rewards is the wrong motivation for doing things. Do it because it is the right thing or do it because it is the best thing. I aced every exam that I sat in and though I cared about the result, it never was a driving factor for me. It was easy as I was always well prepared.

The problem is that my worth got measured by the marks that I could get, so when in 10^th grade one subject got my total percentage down, people questioned my capabilities and judge me for not being good as they expected me to be. So, though I never celebrated my wins and was content with my process, my failures were celebrated with pomp and show.

What everyone thought did not bother me, but any care I had for the results as victories evaporated. Successes and failures stopped mattering. I was just sixteen.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

Jack Kerouac

It did not change much as I grew older, rather got worse. Failures started piling up, successes began to lose their meaning. At sixteen when I had stopped caring, at twenty-three all I cared was about the failures. Even if I had things to celebrate, I was too blind to see.

Someone questioned this last year- why did I not celebrate getting a new job. My only response was a shrug. I may have had reasons to not celebrate certain things in the past, but in the last decade, I had stopped celebrating altogether. My graduation ceremony was indefinitely postponed, and I did not bother much. I was happy but content without any celebration.

I wanted to change that. A year later I realize I feel bad for not caring about not having the convocation.

Celebrations are important. Celebrating something is important. At max, it is joyous merriment of something spectacular in your life or at the very least it can be an acknowledgement of the effort that you put in to achieve that something spectacular.

Stop and smell the roses, every one of them is worthy.

Life is as busy as it gets. We are always connected. We are judged by how busy we are. We are rewarded by how many vacation days are left. We miss sunrises as we slept too late. We miss sunsets because we had calls to attend. We missed that lunch as we forget to eat. We forgot ourselves as we had a life to build. We forget that work in itself is not the reward. And then we wonder why we have burnout.

A lot of us celebrate the big stuff. Friends and family get together for functions, parties and games. We engage in an exciting evening of song and dance and food and drinks. Some want their customary cake, some want that pop of champagne. It builds a sense of community and togetherness. It gives us a chance to connect with people we love.

But one thing I learned is to celebrate the small things. That was my 2020. Yes, I celebrated my graduation from B-school, that was huge, but my favourite memories were the small celebrations.

1. An 18-year-old scotch on my last day on campus
2. A dairy-free pie to celebrate the pi day in a tiny cottage next to the beach.
3. Celebrating my 1^st deadlift after 6 months of recovery from a back injury
4. Celebrating 1 month of a new job with a drink over video calls
5. Celebrating 5-7 months of getting better after a breakup by issuing a certificate in my name
6. Celebrating 6 months of anti-depressant therapy by gifting myself a guitar
7. Celebrating my birthday for myself after almost a decade
8. Celebrating 3 months of a new car by going on a drive to nowhere
9. Celebrating surviving a gruelling hospital stay by eating a blueberry cheesecake (Don’t do this please)
10. Celebrating the decision to leave an old job by acknowledging and accepting it was the right step for my future.
11. Celebrating getting my new job by doing a wild dance
12. Celebrating a year of new friendship and an eventual relationship with gratitude and respect.

I decided to stop and smell the roses. I celebrated the small wins. I celebrated the underrated achievements. All these were an effort to achieve something, every single outcome I deserved it and these celebrations were a solemn pat on my back.

I understand and accept that these celebrations are rewards of a job well done, it need not matter how tough it was or how easy. It was important for me to honour the journey that brought me here.

Now, I love celebrations.

“So let’s raise our glass to the accident season,
To the river beneath us where we sink our souls,
To the bruises and secrets, to the ghosts in the ceiling,
One more drink for the watery road.”

Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The above image is clicked in Bali. Please follow my Instagram for more travel updates. Here is a link to another post about my thoughts on happiness

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