My friend Mike is doing a little experiment based on Facebook Birthday posts. I know some view them as "whatever," but IMHO anyone that takes time to even write a quick message is doing you a welcome show of appreciation.

This year, hilariously, I didn't realize until the end of the day that I had set my own Facebook privacy settings in such a way that people could only comment of stuff I wrote, not leave their own stand-alone "happy birthday" posts.* Subsequently I got almost no birthday wishes and, especially after the last year, it was kind of a bummer.** A bummer of my own making—which believe you me, the irony of which was not lost on me—but a bummer nonetheless. It also made me feel a little better once I realized that's why people hadn't been posting on my wall in general!***

So I don't know how Mike's experiment will end up, but I'll keep wishing people a happy birthday since I know that no matter how you slice it, it can only brighten up their day.


* Clearly this was based on me changing my settings a few months ago when I particularly needed to get away from negative posts and comments in general, and I just forgot to open posts back in later once everything was in a more positive place.
** Super smiles to the folks that messaged me, or texted me, or sent me belated greetings, once they realize they couldn't post due to my mistake.
*** I was also offline all day and off my cellphone so I missed extremely nice folks like my friend Alison trying to text me that my settings were off early in the day!