The Importance of Celebrating Milestones Together

Summer often brings more than the usual number of celebrations. Graduation ceremonies, engagement parties, weddings, baby showers, gender reveals, retirement parties, funerals, etc., etc. If you have friends and family, chances are you’ve been to at least a couple such events in the last month.  It got me wondering why we do them. Because we always do them, whether hosted by others or done on our own. We do them despite the potential for family drama, the expense, the agony of guest lists, and the worries about what to wear. We participate in events put on in our honor by well-meaning friends, whether they are truly in the style we want or whether we really want them at all. Sometimes such events are joyfully surprising and happy for all. Sometimes, in an effort to please everyone, we don’t. There is no way out of them: If we don’t engage in the various yearly celebrations and rites of passage, there are people who will never let us forget it. Often we are left wondering if we should have or could have. The fact is, people have been performing rituals to mark the cycle of the seasons and people’s milestone events for thousands of years. All religions have sacred rites to acknowledge the passage of time and changes in status by individual members. Every culture marks the seasons and significant changes in people’s lives (coming of age, joining a couple, births, deaths) with celebrations or ritualized events. A 2006 discovery of ritual artifacts in Botswana dating f...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Family Friends Memory and Perception Cultural Practices Holidays Traditions Source Type: blogs