Birthdays and Free Will

This week I celebrate a birthday, so I’m remembering birthdays past. Here’s a memory I am not proud of.

On my 22^nd birthday, my life was pretty wonderful. As a graduate student I studied great literature and I taught good students. I lived with delightful friends—girls I had lived with for years and with whom I had formed a kind of family. (You can see them in the photo here.) I had a boyfriend who was kind and funny (not the kind and funny man I married, by the way).

But my birthday was not wonderful. I woke up with expectations that all these good people would make a fuss over me. And they didn’t. No “Happy Birthday!” from my roommates. No birthday breakfast from my boyfriend. No impromptu birthday songs and cake in the graduate carrels. Nothing. All. Day. Long.

I, of course, remained silent. No hints, no reminders. But my hurt and anger grew and grew. Finally, when my poor boyfriend picked me up after dinner so we could go study at the library, as we always did, I blew up, right there in his rusty red 1965 Volkswagen bug. I cried and carried on and accused him and everyone I knew. Clearly, nobody cared about me.

We drove around. He listened. Finally, he said, “Well, I think I’d better take you home now.”

Tears still in my eyes, anger still in my heart, I walked through the door.

“Surprise!”

 There was a big sign, a big cake, and all my friends were singing. I was crying and laughing and feeling really stupid.

The next year, I had the same boyfriend. He had learned a lesson. That year he took me out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and produced a gift at every meal.

It took me longer to learn from that day. In face I’m still thinking about it.

I can think of several lessons I could learn. One is to let people know what my expectations are, rather than blaming them for not doing what they didn’t know I wanted them to do.

Another really good one would be to not be so selfish, not to assume the world revolves around me, even on my birthday.

Or I could just learn to have more faith in those I love, and to know that they wish the best for me as I wish the best for them. Maybe a surprise party is being planned!

But here is the lesson I’m thinking of now. The way other people treat me does not determine how I feel. I can choose whether I am happy or unhappy. I could have made that birthday a happy one by making breakfast for my roommates, by bringing candy to the graduate carrels, by taking time to think about the past year and the future year and all the good in my life.

I am responsible for my own happiness. I have that freedom and I have that responsibility.

But, still, I’m really glad my good husband, children, and friends made me feel loved and happy on my birthday. The party, the cake, the presents, and the flowers were great!

”Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;  For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.”

Doctrine and Covenants 58:27-28