The other night was technically the last night I plan to celebrate my birthday with a ‘Birthday Dinner.’ If you want to know, my birthday is in Early March, and I started celebrating it the night before with dinner in Red Bank. Split a giant tomahawk steak for two, and then continued for most of the month. Three trips to Nola’s in Garwood and Sally’s in New Haven for Pizza, 99 Favor Taste and Gyu Kaku for BBQ/Hot pot, Pine Tavern for some steak, and Beckets in NY, Chegg in LBI for wings. I might have missed a few more, I am sure I have. 

Yeah, I enjoyed going out with friends and family. I know in years past I would celebrate a few times and let move on. This year seems different where I almost wanted to find celebrations. Of all the things I have discovered about myself in the past few years writing this, is that I do have a zest for life. Thought throughout my life there have been obstacles the lessons from my parents that they were temporary hurdles or minor inconveniences. I struggled to understand they would always end. 

I have been given the advice that others have problems, often more challenging than yours, and that people would die to have my issues. Just this past weekend while hanging out with a DJ friend of mine who said every time you are frustrated, remember you can play piano and guitar, that are thousands like me that cannot play either. These reminders are why I spent a lot of time celebrating my life. Yes, I might not have some things that are important to me, but I spent time with people who remind me, I have more than others. 

The question really should be is why am I stopping celebrating my birthday? The answer is a bit more optimistic; it is that I want to celebrate life instead. In thirty years, I would love to have the health and youth that I have now. I did spend the last year getting myself in shape, though the latest injury is a struggle, but I need to realize that I need to look to see how far I have come.  

This is starting to sound close to a post I made previously about when climbing a mountain you need to occasionally look down. It is a derivative. That was looking more at a specific task, that if the task takes a long time to accomplish, you need to make sure you see how far you came versus only looking on how far you must go. This states your life is the mountain, and only looking down once a year is not enough. In many cases people talk about how you ‘survived’ another year. I do not want to be one who was told they survived a year; I want to be one who as my kids say ‘slayed,’ the past year.  

Each day may have a challenge, and some challenges pile up, but all of them are just that, something that I know I can get through. I may need help from family, friends, coworkers etc. And spending time with them, dinner, show, just hanging out celebrates our ability to get through the latest hurdle. My current hurdle is an elbow injury, and I did go for help. I doubt I will take out my Physical Therapist out, but my daughter helped me do a few things, my friends helped me with others. The key is do not waste time being frustrated, the problems will be there, and if you get one, another one will show up. Just like any other milestone, celebrate getting past it. My birthday celebration each year will be about how I crushed it.  

Disclaimer 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain; I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  I do read all feedback; but it is moderated.

This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book.  With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path.  I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content.  I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip.  I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.   AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them. I double checked with ZeroGPT, this was not written by AI