NORMAL LIFE: Ditching Season 2008

A new year, a new start. And time to start getting life in order for the year ahead. So, I started with reviewing my contacts in my mobile phone and proceeded to delete people at will. Of course, I'm not just ditching anybody, only those contacts who I have had no contact with for so long so as to render them uneccessary as well as those people who I would gladly see the back of.

Altogether, I deleted 74 contacts: among them were phone numbers of service providers such as florists and libraries, whom I haven't use for a long time. There were a number of former colleagues who have left the firm to start new lives and who, no doubt, are looking forward rather than backwards. There were some dear friends and when I calculated that I had counted twelve deletions representing people I have once held dear or whose presence in my life I hoped would spawn the start of some good friendships, I was reminded of the Archbishop of Canterbury's New Year message.

Using the context of waste generated by gift-related packaging, the Archbishop asked what impact such high-volume waste disposal, and the replacement of last years gadget with this years gadget, has on friendships. He asks: does our obsession with keeping up with change result in treating people and relationships as disposable too?

I felt guilty as I remembered this, thinking to myself: am I throwing these people away, discarding them with very little thought? My immediate answer is one loud, bellowing 'no' of denial. Anyone who knows me well, knows how much I put into my friendship. A friendship should be a two-way mutual exchange of thoughts, ideas and experiences. If it is largely one-way traffic, then I believe that your efforts are better concentrated elsewhere.

But it's pleasing that, as old as he is, the Archbishop raised a very interesting point and, as a reassurance, as young as I am, I actually welcomed and appreciated his views because, by being left on the sidelines as often as I am, I know what it feels like to be disposed of.