one for the record

People tend to be overly creative sometimes. And most of the times, for all the wrong reasons too.

Take for instance the creation of a holiday to commemorate a non-occasion. The most celebrated of which is Valentine's Day - the single biggest contributor to economic activity in the first quarter of each year. According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion Valentine's card are sent each year (second to the 2.6 billion cards during Christmas).

If I'm not mistaken, pocket organizers/calendars mark a special day for all the members of the family like mothers, daddies, brothers, sisters and cousins. Which in my opinion is totally ridiculous. Do we need to have a unified date to celebrate our gratitude and love for them? Don't get me wrong, I totally understand the concept behind these "Hallmark holidays". However, I also believe that the true essence of appreciation is lost by this commercialization.

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As I have talked about "Hallmark holidays" earlier, I might as well tackle another absurd non-event commonly observed by couples - the -saries series. Yes it has become a series of sorts as it has evolved from the traditional anniversary to the tolerable monthsary, and just recently I read from an online journal a greeting for a couple's first weeksary. Weeksary?!

I'm not one to judge. It's nice to have a measure or standard of sorts for all kinds of things. And obviously, relationships are no exception.

However, this measure - the length of one's relationship is a poor indicator of how one has loved and been loved. I'm not saying that it's not entirely indicative of endurance, tolerance and compromise. But time is a weird variable in relationships - one can love a person for just a day and he might say that he found the love of his life; or a couple who has been together for the last decade may decide to part ways because they are just together for the sense of security and belongingness and not love.

Going back to the '-saries', I'm really not a big fan of monthsaries. So you can just picture how I would react to weeksaries. Again, it's not bad to remember the occasion (I'd still be delighted to a suprise dinner or a gift) but to make a big deal of it is a totally different thing.

Love binds two persons so that they could find happiness in each other. And they should not be counting the years, months and days they have together. Instead, what they should consider and cherish are the beautiful moments and memories they have.

Life is too beautiful to be wasted on tick-marking those days off the calendar.

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Oh yeah. This post is the 100th entry on OMBD for 2008. Happy 100th Post to me!

Everyone, mark this on your calendars. Lol.

Cheers!