This week I’m getting my friends together to do something really special on Friendship Day. Scroll down to read it. Accompanying that are troubles caused by partners, tips to stay focused at work and how to handle teen trouble. Join in…

This year on Friendship Day, I decided to do something unusual. I was thinking to myself how we sometimes swallow up certain bitter things about friendship. Now, if you have a real friendship going along in your life, there will be those times when you don’t really like something that your friend did and you hated it. But you never brought it up or discussed it because that might have led to arguments and probably make your friendship hit a low. Do these things stop bothering you? Most often, it does linger on in your mind as an uneasy memory.

This Friendship Day I have asked all our friends to my pad. We will have a tell-tale session! In this, each of us has to recall one incident when someone of us made the other person mad with anger, embarrassment or sheer disgust. The pre-requisite to this session is that you won’t carry home the bitterness that you come with. The purpose of the session is to purge our friendship off memories we are not comfortable with. All my closest buddies have agreed to this. It promises to be a one-of-its-kind friendship time. I may post updates on this next week. Keep an eye out!

I am having some problems with Sarah. It has got everything to do with my insistence on meeting her often. Sarah says that a thousand things are on her plate. As a result of this, we had some bitter exchange of words. We are now on ceasefire, but then we are not talking to each other. As if that was not problematic enough, Adrian has got into some trouble of his own because of my relationship woes. Guess what he did? He told his significant other, Cathy, that it was Sarah’s fault that the relationship was in shreds! No wonder Cathy protested.

In the process, I heard Adrian and Cathy were not talking to one another as well. I asked Adrian in stupefied astonishment as to what he was thinking when he put the blame squarely on Sarah! “I understand you are my best friend and you are biased,” I told him, “but sharing this emotion with Cathy was suicidal!” Adrian’s bowed head gave it off that he realized he has been a douche. With each of our partners baying for blood, we made it a guy’s time and called over Steve for a night of drinks and guy talk! Sometimes, just sometimes, it pays to have your significant other really angry with you!

There is work and there are distractions! Very few can claim not to check their emails and social networking pages surreptitiously at work. However, there is hardly anyone among them who will deny that doing so affects their productivity at work. Buzz an employer and the person will tell you how much of office hours get wasted because employees are addicted to internet miscellany. The way to deal with it is to develop the focus towards work. Thinking of the jobless might work, if pessimism is a catalyst for you. Otherwise, take hints from Ryan!

Ryan does a whole lot of socializing while at work, make no mistake on that! But when he’s really serious, he cuts himself off mercilessly. He logs out of every networking page, shuts down his personal email, puts his cell phone on ‘flight mode’ and gets to work. When he’s brain dead, he takes walks in the office corridors. You can try these out, too. But Ryan says these are superficial tricks. He advises, “The real focus comes from taking care of yourself: through exercise and sleep!” Are you ready to try these out at work? I did. It helps!

Donna and my sister Liz had a talk sometime back. It was a casual chat between two mothers of teenagers. Liz is having a bit of a problem coping with Rachael and her teenage years. Though it’s not really a situation to hit the panic button yet, the problem had to be nipped in the bud. After repeated failures to get her daughter see reason in some matters, Liz called on Donna. Though I am not privy to everything that was communicated, I got to know some of them and I am going to share them with you.

Donna told Liz that the best way to turn a teenager off is to tell them, “I am the parent so you got to listen to me!” Donna suggested that Liz take it easy and not worry about Rachael or try to account for every minute of her life. “Just let go,” Donna told her, “The more you try to grasp them in, the more they will tend to slip through your fingers.” Donna forbade Liz from forcing Rachael to have ‘family time’ when she’s not up to it and asked her not to get Rachael to share stuff if she doesn’t feel like. The words of wisdom make sense. Let’s see if they work!

Here’s a G Randolph quote to keep you company this week: “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”