Tasneem, I cleaned my friendship house about 20 years ago. I looked at each person in my life, including family, and asked myself:

Does this person add value to my existence?

If the answer was no or if I could not answer the question at all, I let them go.

Most of my life, I was a doormat for everyone. Believing that the more I did for others, the more they would like me, the more secure I would be in my relationship with them.

My father was the one who wiped his feet on me the most. He was the first to go but not because I asked and answered that question but because I realized — suddenly, one day — that he was ruining my life. His narcissistic manipulations were strangling the life out of me.

Once I walked away from him, the haze left my eyes and I began seeing that many people were in my life for what they received from me, while I received little in return.

I once prided myself on have a huge group of “friends”, who turned out not to be.

Now, I have few people in my life that I call friends or family but I know that quality is better than quantity, especially when it comes to the ones you hold close.