Out With The Old & In With The New?

I opened the door to my garage the other day to find a mess that sort of shocked me. It was full of packed up boxes from us moving into our house months before, kids toys, lawn equipment, pool supplies, the list goes on... It wasn't like I didn't know that it had been growing. I guess I had just chosen to ignore it. The same kind of mess was happening on my desk with all kinds of papers and bills that needed to be gone through. I spent hours the other day just cleaning out my inbox on my email.

At what point in life do you say "out with the old and in with the new"? And how often should you do this? What should you do it with? Obviously, accumulated trash and junk mail are important things to sort through, but what about friends? What decides if a friend is worthy of staying in your life, or making their way to the get rid of pile? And what about the recycle pile? Do you ever find a friend there? Maybe they left your life at one point for whatever reason, and now you are thinking of recycling them back into your life. All things considered, what is the final determining factor of someone being dependable vs. diabolical?

I guess the older I get, the more I realize how important the whole quality vs. quantity idea is. When I was younger, it didn't really matter who was there, as long as there were enough people to fill up the house and have a party. The problem there is, when the party is over, you are left with an empty house and a mess to cleanup. When you sit down with a few good friends, you should be left feeling enriched and enlivened. I want to be alive. I want to live this life so full that nobody can touch my happiness.

Which people are most important in your life? And what lengths would you go to keep those relationships in your life? What types of relationships have you sent to the trash bin, and why?