Everyone has a quota.
Each one of your friends, family members and coworkers.
No one around you is safe from this number.
It dictates how much time you can spend with, or talk,
to a specific person, before feeling the need to retreat.
If it’s low, it means you can tolerate this person’s
presence for a very limited amount of time.
The TQ is calculate in minutes.
Simply put, it’s the number of consecutive minutes you can be with someone.
An annoying coworker, for example, might have a TQ of 5 or 6. It only takes 5 or 6 minutes for you to plan your exit after they started opening their mouth and you are locked in.
There are negative extremes, like the boss whose IQ is lower than a typical German Shepherd’s, the asshole who talks down to you and your colleagues, is closed to new ideas and projects his personal frustrations and insecurities onto the whole team.
This unusual case would have a TQ of less than 1. A person you can only tolerate for 59 seconds or less. Thankfully, these parasites are pretty rare. In my limited experience, after spending two decades in the workforce, they usually represented only 1 or 2 out of every hundred co-workers I have ever encountered.
Then there are other relationships where a friend or close one might be someone you truly love. But there are limits to how long you can spend with them before starting to feel like pulling away. It could be caused by their negative attitude toward life or addiction to gossip. Or simply because they rarely have anything deep or interesting to say. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a personality mismatch.
For example if you tend to be quiet and introspective, and a friend is often loud and obnoxious. Or vice versa. These people fit in the average TQ range. Usually around 200. You can technically spend 200 minutes with them, but it starts getting painful at the 3 hr mark…
We all have some friends or family members with whom we could talk to for hours, or even go on vacation with and still feel in harmony. Then feel like doing it all over again. Those are positive relationships. The high TQ relationships. The 1k club. The rare gems that you must cherish, love and appreciate. They empower you, and you empower them.
You could easily spend 1000 minutes in their company (about 16 hours), or a full day from morning to night. No matter how happy and positive you are, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that this type doesn’t represent the majority of people around you. I said it earlier,
but it must be repeated- They are precious, and we must be grateful for having them in our lives.
If you want your life to be a happy and productive one, you need to give time and energy to the people who deserve it. And limit the time spent with the other, less deserving types. The very low TQ relationships must be eliminated from your life,
cut out as precisely as a surgeon would remove a malignant tumour.
It’s not always easy. These people know you well, and very often, they know your weaknesses. So they will resist your attempt at pulling away from them. No matter how much they try to twist reality and manipulate you into feeling guilty or like a bad person during this surgery, keep in mind that this is like a vampire shrieking while a wooden stake is being pushed into his heart. Once the noise is gone, life will quiet down and
you’ll be able to enjoy newfound freedom.
Be grateful and happy that most people are good, but be aware of the parasites.
Recognize and eliminate them from your life as early as possible, before they can
cause damage to your health, career, relationships and life.
One last thing—- This isn’t a way to feel superior to others, or bring them down. It’s nothing more than a scale to measure the optimal amount of time and energy you can healthily share with different people. Keep in mind that many, if not most of the people you can’t stand, probably feel the same way about you. But humans often get stuck in bad habits and prefer the comfort of routine than the chaos of change.
That’s why you must be strong enough to initiate the change, and give your relationships a good spring cleaning once in a while.
Preferably once a year.
Midlifemorphosis 