At the same point each year, my wife and I get into the same discussion. It’s a few weeks until my birthday, and she wants to buy me presents. So, we have the same circular conversation that I don’t want nor need anything, and she tries all sorts of tactics to get me to give in.

My wife shares a viewpoint with most of the world, in that the volume of stuff or expenditure is equal to the amount you care about someone. She thinks that if I don’t receive anything, then I will be disappointed, and no amount of reassurance seems to matter.

I will concede that some of my issues with my birthday are deep-rooted phycological weirdness. For example, I do not believe birthdays are anything special and seem like a celebration for nothing. You are not achieving anything by being on a rock that has gone around the sun any more. No, I don’t know what my parents did to me as a child!

However, I hate stuff, and cluttering up my life with things I do not really need and have just thought up to make someone happy is a nightmare. So, I will have the conversation year-on-year, forever…