2026! Reviewing Our Circle Of Friends

Dr jarlat Uche opara

2026 is still brand new! Fresh from the oven if it were a bread, mint if it were a currency and tear-leather if it were a vehicle. Very new, however, its journey to old age has just begun. Before one would say Jack, the wrinkles, floppy skin, weak bones and blurry eyes, signs of old age would set in, death would follow, paving way for 2027.

As the year is still mint with the crispness of its newness, having a review of ones life, ones circle of friends, likes and dislikes, aspirations and decisions etc become very important.

Often, we overrate our importance and inflate it beyond decent proportion.

You may know them as friends doesn’t mean they know you as a friend and you would be needed in their life. That you celebrate with them in their circle of friends doesn’t mean you would be remembered in your absence.

Check your phone. How many of those who you think laugh with you, flashing glittering set of teeth are truly your friends? How many would you possibly place a save a soul call and ones plea heeded with the urgency and precision needed?

How many of such smiles are signs of loyalty, and how many are mere social reflexes? We live in a world full of paradox: a world crowded with souls that appear real yet deeply deceptive.

Nearness is no longer proof of familiarity, and familiarity is not evidence of affection and intimacy .Silence, more than noise, often reveals a lot of truth to decerning minds.

Check your WhatsApp inbox. Scroll through the messages. How many remembered you during the Christmas period? With wishes and visits? Today is new year. How many wished you happy new year, called or visited? It may look too simple and common but the truth is the way one does little things says a lot about the way one will do the big things. Take it or leave it, little things truly are the big things.

Seasons have strange power to communicate emotions and feelings, they expose priorities, and unconciously set relationship boundaries. Sincere relationship don’t form busy to wish either happy Christmas or new year. One would proudly get ones hands on the keys and gladly punch those heartfelt wishes not an over forwarded ones that lack emotional connection.

2026 is here, reduce your expectations, refine your circles, and preserve your peace. Not everyone who smiles with you is walking with you.Not everyone who walks with you is going where you are going. Not everyone who claps for your success is at peace with it. Be decerning and create boundaries.

The truth is, most of the relationships we maintain are forced and forged with a high level of pretence. We coat most of our relationship with cosmetics, far from reality.

We play along too often while our hearts are far from those we seem close with.

There are indices of knowing those who think about you genuinely, those who possibly would chest bullets for you, counting no cost. Find those indices and check if those that hang around, share jokes, exchange pleasantries, share same group and association network are indeed your friends or fairweathers.

This is 2026! Know those you call friends and they in turn call you friend. Know too those you call friends but you are not in their friends’ list.

Create boundaries and create scarcity of presence. Be decerning and know where your limits are. This is 2026. Be decerning and know where your presence is wanted and where you are just forcing it.

2025 came with a lot of hard lessons about life and relationship. Don’t be too fast to call someone a friend unless tested. Don’t be to eager to let people into your secrets, unless tested. Life comes in vacillating mood. That it seems sweet today doesn’t mean it may not be sour tommorow. Whether sweet or bitter maintain a decent boundaries, see finish has its consequences and oftentimes not too good an experience.

This is 2026 learn to activate buttons of invisibility sometimes. Not all the time you should be seen. Button of continence, not everything that appeals to you, you must have. Button of silence, being loquacious all the time diminishes value. Learn to watch and observe without being expressive all the time. Lastly learn to use the word friend with caution, not every smiling face is a friend.

*MY LAST WORD*: Check all the platforms you belong to, access all those you smile at and they smile back at you, from the pool, would you be able to get help of 50k from 20 of them urgently( one million naira) unfailing? If not, your relevance and impact are weak. There is more to relationship than knowing ones names, eating, drinking and cracking jokes.

Jarlathuche@gmail.com