I have a friend whom I hadn’t seen in many years because he left to travel and live in many parts of the world many years ago. He came back last year after being away for fifteen years. In that time he acquired a lot of interesting languages, stories, and traditions that he has shared with us, his friends, since his return. On the occasion of my Birthday last year, this friend of mine presented me with a gift box and a card.
In the box was a new shirt and a new pair of underwear. In the card, he explained that in one of the Countries he lived in, they had a tradition that one always wore a new shirt on their Birthday to bring in prosperity throughout the year. The new underwear tradition came from yet another Country, and meant something similar. So, in keeping with both the traditions of the cultures he had come to know and love, my friend gifted me with both a new shirt and new underwear, which I promptly put on and wore the rest of the day and night.
A year later, not expecting that my friend, or any friend for that matter would gift me with either a new shirt or underwear, I proceeded to buy myself both on two separate occasions, long before my Birthday, in anticipation. I decided that I would take this opportunity and use it as a way to “stretch” my limits and my comfort zone. As a couple of my friends suggested this year in their Facebook Wall greetings, “celebrate with abandonment,” or “do something you wouldn’t normally do.”
So, on the occasion that I bought the shirt, I bought a shirt that was very outside of something that I have ever warn and something that I actually never thought I would wear, or even dreamed of wearing. I have visions of having fun in the shirt and I looked forward to being comfortable in it, thinking I would then have achieved a sense of, “if I can be comfortable wearing this out in a crowd, I will have overcome my fear of what people might think…”
When it came time to buy new underwear, I did something similar, and bought a pair of underwear, brand, style and a color that was not in my collection, and was a little outside my “normal” zone. After all, this was to symbolize prosperity and good things to come. Being sure I would also loose the rest of the weight I had been wanting to loose by my Birthday, I bought a whole size smaller than my “normal” size underwear.
Along comes my Birthday, in fact, it kinda snuck up on me. I am known to often say, “Everyday is my Birthday,” and therefore not pay too much attention to my actual birth date. I also say that I feel celebrated by my family, friends, partners in my business, and by fans alike, all the time, and don’t feel that I have to necessarily be celebrated on my birth date. And so, my Birthday, sneaking up on me, is highly possible, and it did.
Since I had planned to be out of town on that day, I did not make plans with any friends or family members. But when my plans to go out of town got postponed, and as my friends started to come to know that, I was happily presented with a beautiful assortment of opportunities for fun with my friends.
When morning came, I considered all the places I was planning on going and what I would want to wear to each of them. I then went to the drawer to pull out the new shirt I had planned to be my new Birthday shirt. It was interesting that the shirt was no longer that appealing to me, and how I didn’t feel like it matched any of the places and activities I was going to partake in that day. I pondered what to do as I went for the new underwear I had chosen months before.
Hmmm. When I opened the box and remembered that I had chosen a size smaller thinking I would have lost all the remaining weight I had wanted to loose by now, and hadn’t, I had to ponder some more. What to do, what to do. I was sure the underwear would not fit comfortably and I was sure the shirt would not comfortably fit into all the places I was planning on being in with all the various friends that day.
I thought about ditching the new found traditions and just wear clothes that I wanted to wear at this point. And that would have been okay to do, since it wasn’t for superstitious reasons that I, this year, adopted this tradition.
And then I thought of an ancient Chinese saying I made up, :-), that comfort is not just about being comfortable when all is comfortable. True comfort is achieved when one can be comfortable even in uncomfortable experiences and surroundings. Something like that. So, I decided, that me, who always wanted everything to be right, perfect, and the way “I” wanted it, as much as is possible, and was not always happy with the way things were, was going to dawn a new attitude for my Birthday, along with my new shirt and my new attitude. That attitude was, that I was going to be grateful for my new shirt and underwear and to take the intent of why I bought them to begin with, and live up to that.
My intent in buying each article of clothing, was not only that they would represent prosperity for my new year, in the traditions that my friend introduced me to, but also that they would be a stretch for me to wear them. What more a stretch could this opportunity have presented me. As I put on the underwear, it was indeed too tight, a size too tight, and therefore, quite uncomfortable. When I put on the shirt, it was so not me, and it made me laugh at myself.
I was reminded on that very day, of the years I had worn hand-me-downs, that were so not me, and how I hated going to school in them, especially when I was teased for wearing clothes that were “outdated” or obviously worn, when all the other children had on NEW clothes, at the beginning of the year. As I child, I suffered through those years greatly. And here I was, a grown man who could afford to buy a shirt that he really likes at this point, purposely wearing a particular shirt, to feel the fear of what his friends might say or how he would feel in a shirt like this.
Interestingly enough, I didn’t even have fear, I had a laugh. As for my friends… I usually get compliments on the way I dress or my clothes. Not one friend complimented my shirt all day, in fact, no one said anything at all about my shirt. Everyone noticed it, it would have been hard not to. If this wasn’t a sign of disapproval, I don’t know what was. The next day, a friend of mine went so far as to tell me that I should burn the shirt.
So there I was all day, in my tight new underwear, my inappropriate new shirt, and my spanking, shining new attitude. My attitude was saying, I can be comfortable even when uncomfortable, because in the end, what I was wearing wasn’t what really mattered to me and happily, to my friends either. What mattered was that we were celebrating and we were together and we were happy to be together doing fun things and honoring each other.
Of the three, I think the new attitude will bring to me much more prosperity than new underwear or a new shirt, ever could. On my next friend’s Birthday, I think I will wrap up a new attitude in a box with a card that explains to them this tradition I have adopted of wearing a new attitude for one’s Birthday to usher in prosperity, opportunity, new experiences and freedom of old patterns, fears, worries… Happy Birthday to me, I got a new attitude!