Notice who’d sit with you in a hospital hallway at 3 a.m. Plan your life around those names.

A short list of people would come out in the middle of the night and sit with you without being useful. That test cuts through everything else. Not who is fun, not who is impressive, but who would be in the corridor. Most people have fewer names on that list than in their phone, and that is normal.

Work out who your names are, and put real time into them this month rather than into the wider circle. Being that person for somebody else is the other half, and it mostly means going when it is inconvenient.