Birthdays are for presents and blowing out candles. Maybe a little laughter, a shared event with friends perhaps, and the milestone is marked and passed.

But I have an unspoken birthday ritual…and I suspect I am not alone. I start to ponder my life, sift through the failures and successes and ask big scary questions that never have a neat respectable answer like; Who am I? What the hell am I doing with my life? What makes my life worth living?

These are not new questions. Greater minds than mine have tendered philosophies and theories aplenty throughout humanity and bring comfort still, but in these modern times a question isn’t just in need of an answer – it’s in need of a search engine.

Oh why did I do this – as if it is not enough to start pondering the meaning of life? I found myself completing a myriad of personality surveys. Nothing like an Internet diagnosis to lift the spirits. The results were not pretty, and I found myself on the phone to my mother, wanting to get to the bottom of my personality defects, and a week’s worth of self-analysis following every interaction and activity.

It seems I was on the road to neurotic, so far from a sense of newfound wisdom with which to mark my birthday. My brother brought me to my senses; turns out most Internet personality surveys are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry so you are always going to get a diagnosis. Cured.

But the questions still remained. I decided there might be a more worthy sources than Google and its Internet surveys.

I found this year’s answers were already on my bookshelf. Five books, five lessons and at least a sense of the meaning of life.

The Good Life – Hugh Mackay

He’s a bit of an Australian legend our Hugh and this book does not disappoint. It turns out I may have been asking the wrong question. It’s not about me. The question should be Who are we?

Hugh states that ‘the key to a good life is to acknowledge that our essential nature is social, not individual.’ And further more that ‘the greatest monument to any of our lives will not be in stone, but in our living legacy – the influence we have had on other people at every point of connection with the human family’.

It’s a book with stories that demonstrate his points on ‘how the pursuit of happiness can make you miserable’ and the ‘seven false leads’ including the future, self discovery, the simple life, perfection. (I particularly love the image he casts of the greenie living the simple life yelling at her neighbor about the carbon emissions from his lawn mower.)

He said it’s ok that both the selfless and the selfish, the cooperators and the competitors exist within us. Its how we reconcile these two sides of our nature that determines what kind of a person and society we become.

The central part is the Golden Rule; that is echoed through philosophical traditions of East and West: treat other people the way you’d like to be treated.

The Gift – How the creative spirit transforms the word – Lewis Hyde

There is no way I could do Mr Hyde justice, as his book is a beautiful fusion of anthropology, psychology and literature published in the late 1970’s, and incredibly relevant in today’s digital age.

Creativity is within us all. Yet generally we devalue it and its purpose unless it brings with it admiration or money. The commercialisation of creativity is making us forget its real purpose, and corrupting its importance as cultural expression.

It makes me think of how My Kitchen Rules has made me feel embarrassed if my every meal isn’t an amateur three-hat success, even if I am eating alone.

To embrace being creative without concern for the outcome is to be truly in the moment, to do something with a talent or skill for the experience that it brings to you. And on the whole, when we are all creative without agenda, our words, our art, our food, our dance, our expressions become a gift to each other that, like dominos, inspire and move us.

It’s very much why I love hercanberra.com.au and our community of writers.

The key take away is being fearlessly creative for the sake of being creative.

Flourish – Martin Seligman

Seligman is a giant in the positive psychology movement. He practically started it. And his book Flourish takes that positive thinking to a whole new level. It’s not about achieving happiness. It’s about wellbeing.

Seligman says there are five elements to wellbeing; positive emotion, engagement, meaning, accomplishment and positive relationships. He reframes each of these elements so accomplishment isn’t about wealth or power; it’s about purpose.

It’s a pretty cool idea. It means that no one area of our life should determine the health or meaning of our life.

My favourite part is this the daily ‘three blessings’ or the ‘what went well’ exercise. It seems a little bit of daily gratitude can keep things in perspective.

Seeking the Sacred – Stephanie Dowrick

I seem to return to this book, again and again. Dowrick has a gentle way of articulating profound ideas.

We are always evolving. She says that ‘kindness, happiness, trust and a careful regard for others are not simply ideals to be learned on our way through life; they are also the rewards of an inclusive way of living and being.’

The key is to ‘look for the sacred’ in others. This is more than treating people, as we would like to be treated. It asks us to appreciate and maybe even love others in order to experience life to the fullest.

The top five regrets of the dying – Bronnie Ware

This is a phenomenal book of the real life accounts of Ware, while she was working as a palliative care nurse.

It gives us the perspective of looking back on our life. The opportunity to examine what would we do differently, who would we forgive, how would we spend our time.

In this modern era when so much knowledge is at our figure tips, we seem to be compelled to think things through, to analyse, maybe over analyse our lives and existence.

But Ware tells us that it is ‘the heart that guides you to joy, not the mind. Overcoming the mind and letting go of others expectations allows you to hear your own heart.’

It may sound a little warm and fuzzy but these are the words of a woman who has nursed people at the end, looked into their faces, built the last bond of their lifetime and shared confessions.

Perhaps it is just that simple, let go of others’ expectations and hear your own heart.

This may all sound a little self-help for birthday anxiety, but I have found some seedlings from which to cultivate the next year of my life – minus the Internet personality tests.