“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” ― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

At a certain point in our lives the holidays put a spotlight on the relationships we have. I think of it as the Christmas card display. The friends of convenience make up a big part of the display for the time we’re in the same net, but drift away one-by-one as we grow apart. A few stubborn holdouts keep appearing year-after-year, and those folks anticipate a card from us as well. If we’re still sending Christmas cards to people to let them know we’re thinking of them, chances are they’ll send us one to let us know they are thinking of us too. Send our cards early and we’ll receive a batch from the people who wait to see if we’re sending them one before they invest in the stamp for ours. What we don’t want is to time a card to be postmarked after Christmas, so that race to Christmas Eve is a fascinating case study in human dynamics. For people on the edges of our lives, it’s a game of card-for-card, with your participation award taped to the door frame until a few days into New Year.

We all know that old expression, “the phone works both ways”, but taken literally, it’s a way of letting ourselves off the hook. We often say it when we’ve lost touch with someone who was always in touch. People drift apart as interests change. There’s no getting around the fact that some people are friends of convenience. School friends, teammates, coworkers, neighbors, soccer parents… all friends of convenience until that netting that holds us together is removed. That’s when we find out who we’re going to invest time in, and who is going to invest time in us. If we don’t like our investments, change the portfolio.. and the Christmas card list. It helps to remember that others are making their lists in a similar fashion. Be the person who receives a card because we’re worthy of it, not because we sent one to them. And accept that some people simply don’t play the game and love them anyway.

What is the purpose of life? Isn’t it active participation? Humans are tribal, and built to help other humans exist in a universe indifferent to any form of life, let alone our particularly self-absorbed form of life. What makes life meaningful is stepping up and being part of things. To be loved we ought to love. We ought to be in the mix, engaged with others as best we can be in our time. What’s a stamp anyway? Send the card. Or make the call. Reach out and see how people are really doing as we close out another year. We may just surprise a few people who thought we were the ones who had drifted away.