Dan Morris: Treat passengers well on life’s journey

The truth, alas, is far more monstrous. Her dear desk is often invaded with a complex array of detritus, ranging from disposable coffee cups and napkins to discarded sticky notes, business cards and the occasional chicken (don’t ask).

Such deplorable behaviour deserves a genuine admission of guilt, and with that said, it’s time for the perpetrator to man-up and admit his failing.

You guessed it folks, it was your friendly neighbourhood Danny Boy – sorry Cathy.

I hope you can forgive me my friend, and rest assured that I would have written this apology sooner were my knuckles not in fact still raw from the last rapping they received from your ruler (despite what she claims folks, she certainly does still have one).

Also, you having left your cardigan, handbag and lunch strewn across my keyboard has not helped. I really don’t know where you get this streak from.

All joking apart, Cathy is a good mate of mine – one of many I am blessed with, both in work and out of it.

As I reflect on the banter between us – and draw all of you into it for good measure – I think about a lot of the friendships in my life, and how they represent a cocktail of camaraderie that leaves me without many weeks that don’t take me on a rollercoaster of both humour and stunned disbelief.

My friends – like with anybody else – are the tapestry that makes up my life.

A lot of people set store by where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and where you might be going.

And while these things may sometimes seem important, it’s the people on the journey that make it what it is.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a 70th birthday party for a friend of mine’s stepfather. The guest of honour had also been a pal of mine in his own right for a very long time. A large proportion of my childhood years were spent in the house he calls a home, and as I grew into my teens and beyond, he came to be a character that had a humorous, wise and very genuine influence on me and my friends.

Years ago, in what I believed to be a shock move, I was asked to play the role of ‘toastmaster’ at his wedding. Being young, and naively expecting the part I was to play to involve some sort of lordship over the local bakery’s finest sliced white, I was a little surprised to discover it consisted of introducing the speeches.

Upon asking the man in question why I had been chosen for the task in hand, I was assured and humbled that it was not for my brains, looks, enthusiasm, or even the fact that I had a nice suit on.

“Nah Dan, simply put, you’ve got the biggest gob.”

Fair play.

That – by my maths – was nearly 13 years ago. As I looked around during the birthday party, a couple of things crossed my mind. Number one – despite having not too long ago undergone a quadruple heart bypass, the man of the hour didn’t seem to have aged a day since that wedding.

He was the belle of the ball – and with a glint in his eye and the crowd in his hand, he owned that party, as he has owned every party I’ve ever known him to attend.

His birth certificate may contradict this truth, but his spirit is young, and many other such spirits had turned out to wish him well and bask in his wonderfully infectious aura.

Indeed, the second thing I noticed was the breadth of people in attendance. The guests ranged in their ages from about eight months to eight decades.

Scrap dealers, shoe designers, truck drivers and toddlers had turned out, and all were there because the man’s magnetic personally has drawn a well-deserved circle of fantastic friends over the 70 years he has walked the Earth.

And why is this the case? Because he has, I believe, always recognised that it’s not where you’ve been, what you’ve done or where you might be going that, in life, are most important. It’s who you’re with on the journey.

As such, he has always treated his friends like stardust, and they have responded in kind.

My journey so far has been pretty great, and I hope it will remain so for many decades yet to come. It’s had ups and downs, and like any interesting voyage has changed course a few times. But it has always been populated with a fantastic array of fellow passengers who have made it a story worth telling.

I hope I’ve always treated them well, but in this I am also certain I can do a bit better.

So, let’s get on with it. After all, it ain’t no dress rehearsal.

Time to pay grandma a visit, reacquaint with a few old friends, return some commandeered albums, and get a few rounds in at the bar.

Well... Let’s start with the first three and see how we get on, eh?

Before anything else, I suppose I’d better get Cathy’s desk ship-shape.

It’s been a privilege flying with you chaps, and happily there’s plenty of fuel left in the tank yet.

Here’s to ‘the journey’. Travel it well.