It’s Day 2 of the Just For Today Challenge – 31 Days to A Better You. I hope you had fun with yesterday’s challenge of creating a list of 101 Things To Do Before You Die.
Today’s Challenge is a very simple task and should take you less than 1/2 hour to complete.
Have you ever forgotten someone’s birthday? Has your spouse or significant other ever forgotten an important anniversary or date? You know then how awful that feeling is. Forgetting something important is awful but being forgotten is even worse.
Men can be especially bad at forgetting important dates. As women, we expect them to read out minds and know that our birthday or anniversary is coming up. When they forget or are pre-occupied, it frequently ends with hurt feelings. Let’s make it really easy to remember the important dates in our lives.
Yes, some women can be forgetful and can be insensitive, too. Let’s be proactive and stop the forgetting of important dates for 2010. For men and women.
You can either perform this task on the computer or with a calendar. A paper calendar is preferred because you can then post it somewhere where everyone sees it and it would be centralized. Using a computer is convenient, but does everyone have access to the calendar program and routinely check it? If not, then use a paper calendar or one of the free ones that are sent in the mail.
Putting the calendar up on the fridge or hanging it in the office where everyone has access to it would mean that there would be no excuses the next time an important date occurs. After all, it would be right in front of that person where they see the calendar all the time. There would be no arguments or excuses of why they forgot your birthday because it’s right there on the calendar!
With your 2010 calendar in hand, mark down the birthday of everyone in your family, immediate and otherwise. Then mark down all of your children and friends’ birthdays. Birthdays are the most important dates to remember. When you remember someone’s birthday, you are honouring the day they were born. For me, when you remember my birthday it says to me that you are happy that I was born and am in your life.
Next, mark down your wedding anniversary or any other date that is very important in your family. Mark down all of the important dates for 2010 on the calendar. This list can include the date someone has died, the date of yearly vacation weeks, any recurring dates for your family, the date of certain religious holidays -it could include anything that should be remembered. Mark them all down and highlight those dates in the calendar.
With all the dates written down, there are no more excuses to forget the special dates in people’s lives.
I’ll never forget the time when I turned 17. Birthdays are very important to me, as you can guess 
I woke up on my birthday and was all excited for the day. I remember coming downstairs for breakfast and no one said Happy Birthday to me. I thought that was pretty strange but then I got excited thinking that maybe they would surprise me with a party for my birthday and everyone was just acting like it was just like any other day.
All day at school, I kept thinking of how I would try to act surprised when I got home and saw that there was a big party planned for me. As you can probably surmise, when I got home, there was no one to jump out and yell Happy Birthday to me. There was no birthday cake and there certainly was no presents. Everyone had forgotten that it was my birthday. It’s the worst feeling in the world, and being the youngest of 6 children, you fight to overcome that last in line feeling. It’s been many years since that day and I will never forget that horrible feeling.
Have you ever forgotten an important date? How did you make it up and did they ever forgive you?
Tomorrow’s Challenge will be super-easy (maybe) so come back and see what I have in store for you.
For a list of all of the Challenges, see the Just For Today Challenge page.
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