Friends.

Old Friends are Gold!
New Friends are Diamond!
If you get a Diamond,
Don’t forget the Gold!
Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a Base of Gold!

Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist says that a person cannot have more than 150 stable social relationships.

I maintained two address books with manually entered names, addresses and telephone numbers. One was near the main telephone connection at home and one in my brief case which traveled with me wherever I went. Both are fairly tattered and much thumbed and I decided to make one new one as the brief case is of no use to me anymore.

After I completed the task, I counted the people in the new address book who can be considered to be my friends with who I have a stable relationships. I got 20. I added relatives without counting my siblings, nephews and nieces, who can also be considered as people with who I have a stable relationships and came up with 7. If I count my siblings and their children and grand children with all of who I have excellent relationships, I can add another 21.

I have room for 102 more! Must do something about it.

How about you? Do you think that this is a useful exercise? Or something that someone who has nothing else to do, can do but not you?