BY AYESHA BİLAL (PSYC/III)
ayesha@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
BY AYESHA BİLAL (PSYC/III)
Happy Holiday!
Valentine’s Day, Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…and the list goes on. The significance behind the very existence and continuation of the tradition of dedicating a particular day of the year to a particular group of people is debatable. Everyone’s got a mouthful of opinions when it comes to this tradition, and not all of these opinions are very appreciative. Everyone probably knows at least one person in their social media domains who very actively protests the idea of dedicating a single day of the year to one or another of your loved ones, with the all too clichéd advice about remembering to appreciate your loved ones every day of the year instead of only one enforced day. And not to be forgotten, we also have those social media users who intrude into everyone’s festive mood their angst and concern about the commercialization of merriment, and how the media and big companies are conspiring to create horrifying traditions of days of joy and appreciation so that they can earn more money—because true evil lies in giving flowers and a card to your mother and actually having to pay the florists and greeting card companies for this (gasp)!
So to those of you who fall into one of the categories mentioned above (or any similar category you innovative rebels have created for yourselves)—if you would try to take a step back from these complex constructions of ulterior motives and antagonism against everything socially normative, you might see that not everything tradition is subjected to needs to be fought against. Maybe card companies do capitalize on traditions, as do other businesses, but it would be a stretch to call this exploitation of human lives. They’re just making cards and advertising gifts; if you can’t afford such things but still feel compelled to spend excessive amounts of cash to impress loved ones, then maybe you’re the one who’s in the wrong. And maybe we do need those single days out of the year to wholeheartedly show our appreciation of our loved ones. This doesn’t mean we don’t love them the rest of the year, but it’s very easy to say, on the one day when everyone is encouraged to unreservedly appreciate a particular person in their lives, that it’s hypocritical to go all out on one particular day and then not care the rest of the year. In my opinion, what’s really hypocritical is to say such a thing on that one day to throw cold water on everyone else’s efforts and then go about the rest of your own year the same as everyone else does, without any extraordinary efforts to appreciate your loved ones. What I mean is, everyone is appreciative—of their parents, of their friends, of the women around them, of their romantic partners— and everyone in their own way shows their appreciation throughout the year, but this tends to get overwhelmed by the worries and concerns of daily life. Additionally, we forget that it’s not just our romantic partners who require attention and appreciation; it’s also our parents, siblings, teachers, grandparents, friends, etc., and it’s difficult, given all our everyday obligations, to think about going out of our way to continually show our appreciation to so many people with special gestures. So I feel it’s important for everyone to be shown just how appreciated they are on at least that one particular day of the year—and for those who are doing the showing, to find fulfillment in the fact that they can truly make a loved one feel special by dedicating the whole day to honoring that person’s presence and influence in their lives.
Moreover, with all the time we spend mourning and agonizing over the continued tragic state of the world, such traditions are the wrong thing to be criticizing. The essence of all these holidays, regardless of people’s attempts to find faults with them, is love and appreciation—it really all comes down to that. And so what if, by going an extra mile to show love on that day of the year, we fall prey to the commercialization of a tradition? Most people’s intentions are pure, and their actions unmotivated by anything other than love of those they are trying to honor. And if someone’s motives are in fact about anything other than valuing their loved ones—that is, if they are about making it into a competition as to who can buy the most expensive gifts and who can show the most appreciation—then they’re missing the mark completely with regard to what these holidays are about and what relationships in general should be about. Appreciation can be shown by means of something as simple as a handmade card or a few genuine words that come from the heart, or it can be shown in pricier ways, but the spirit of the holiday should be about the people the holiday is dedicated to, and not about monetary rivalry or criticism of a tradition.