Every hour you spend with people who drain you is an hour you’re not spending with people who fill you up.

Hours only go one place. The cost of an afternoon with someone who leaves you flat is not the afternoon, it is the one you did not spend with people who make you feel like yourself. That trade happens silently, which is why it can run for months without anybody noticing. Nobody is telling you to cut people off, only to see the arithmetic clearly.

Think back over the past week and sort your hangouts into two piles: left me lighter, left me tired. Then move one recurring thing out of the second pile and into the first. Same hours, different return.