On Friday, I lost my phone. It had slipped out of my pocket as I was taking service 79 to Suntec City. However, thanks to God and his saints (my loving mother included), I managed to get it back within the same day without much fuss. And here is where I get philosophical.

One of the many things my phones (the current one and its predecessors) represent is my sentimentality. It started with keeping a few important messages (because the maximum number of stored messages was low), but with each new model comes even more opportunities to capture more and more of my sentimentality. Photos, videos, sound recordings, files and, of course, over a hundred messages, all stored in one little device. And all that was almost lost to me, because I was careless.

Which, I suppose, made me realise that I need to be ready to let go of things that don’t matter in the long run. Too often, I’ve found myself treasuring the past to an extent that I pay scant interest to the present, and don’t even get me started on the future. For example, I’ve been so comfortable with friends I’ve known for over a decade that I’ve almost lost interest in making new ones. And while those long-term friends are dear to me and I would gladly do anything within my means for them, I do need to find space in my life for new friends to enter and share time and experiences. Right now, I don’t think I do that quite enough.

So for this new year, in order to actually make a resolution I can keep, I promise to spend more time with new friends, to be there for them and to keep them in mind and prayer, as long as it doesn’t detract from my dear friends.

Happy New Year, everyone!