This is the time of the year when we should realize who are the most important people in our world. And they aren't Britney Spears or even George W. Bush.

They are family and our friends.

"This is the time for getting our priorities straight and remembering no matter what you want to do in this world, no matter how many TV shows you watch that tell you to be incredibly thin, rich and famous, what really gives us joy is connecting to other human beings," says Victoria Moran, author of "Younger by the Day."

Moran is a huge proponent of staying connected with the important people in our lives. She's not talking about sort-of-connected, either.

"You need to be very present in the moment, in whatever is going on," she says.

We tend to be "selectively present," she says. We just ignore the parts of connecting that bore us.

"But as anybody knows who has traveled to a faraway place, "you miss even the things about family and friends that you didn't like," Moran says.

Staying fully connected isn't always easy. It means writing letters — old-fashioned letters instead of terse e-mail notes. It means letting the other person hear the inflection in your voice, see the emotion in your handwriting.

It means giving another person all your time and attention.

That's a challenge. Try clearing your mind enough to focus fully on the person you're with at that moment. Stop thinking about yourself.

"Meeting with other people means getting excited about being with them. If you were having lunch with the pope or Nicole Kidman, you'd be all excited.

"But everybody is that amazing and we just don't get it. We don't give those people the same level of awe and wonder we give to the famous and important, when, in fact, we're all really remarkable," Moran says.

She calls the "celebrity thing" ridiculous and weird, not to mention "off-base." Like, who really cares what couch Tom Cruise jumped on yesterday?

"We take ourselves out of the circle of our own lives and that's the only place we really have the substance and joy and neediness that let's you know you are really here," she says.

Be yourself in the coming year is her advice. Be with people who reflect the real you.

Ah, be yourself.

But who am I, really? How many layers of protective emotional clothing do I put on every day?

Moran and I talked about the ways we insulate ourselves from the world. We learned to mentally dress this way from the time we were children, she says.

Want to find out who you really are? Moran suggests "think back to what you were like as a very little kid.

Ideally, about 7.

"You are still the same person. You just have to get in touch with your actual core self. Did you love nature? Did you want to be the center of attention? Did you go off and think about things?

"That's who you are and what you've brought to the world, no matter what mask you paste on."

Midlife is a time to look forward and also to reassess the past.

Discovering that 7-year-old inside seems like a good way to begin a new year.

Jane Glenn Haas writes for The Orange County (Calif.) Register. E-mail her at jghaascox.net