On Birthdays

I think that one of the reasons we celebrate birthdays is to attempt to overcome the otherwise depressive nature of the day that would from the awareness that another year of our lives have passed into history, and too often we are neither wealthier nor wiser than we were a year earlier. We have come just a bit closer to the ultimate end lives. This is too depressing a feeling, and we escape this by celebrating, which is a rather good defense.

If, however, life is perceived as a process toward a goal, then the passing of time need not be at all depressing.  Quite the contrary, if one is on a long journey, one feels happier as one gets closer to the destination.

- Rabbi Abraham Twerski, Generation to Generation, page 31