Dont’t give yourself away to others. How to stop getting drained by people, protect your well-being, and create a life where you feel good

Chapter 1. Why You Get Tired Not from Tasks, but from People

One day you notice this in the most ordinary day, one that is no different from the others, and precisely for that reason you do not attach importance to it at first. The morning begins calmly, almost neutrally, without fatigue or inner tension, and this creates a deceptive confidence that the day will remain just as even as usual, without disruptions or overload.

But by evening a state appears that is difficult to explain by the logic of the day you have lived through. Nothing significant happened. No conflicts. No obvious reasons for tiredness. The day may even have been surprisingly calm, and this is exactly what makes the emerging heaviness especially puzzling, as if it did not come from events but from something else, something that went unnoticed.

And you almost automatically find a familiar explanation that closes the question without requiring further reflection: you are simply tired, the day was long, you need to rest. This explanation seems sufficient because it is familiar and socially acceptable, and most people do not go any further at this point. But sometimes rest does not restore the inner state with which the day began. And then a subtle discrepancy appears that is difficult to ignore: a sense that the fatigue does not fully correspond to what you actually did, that something in its nature goes beyond the usual logic of cause and effect.

And if at this moment you do not close the question but simply begin to look more carefully, an observation gradually emerges that changes the entire picture of perception: your state throughout the day is never autonomous and stable. It continuously changes under the influence of other people you come into contact with, even if this contact outwardly seems neutral, brief, or insignificant.

This influence is almost never felt as influence, because it does not take the form of pressure, is not accompanied by drama, and does not stand out against the background of ordinary communication. It is woven into the very fabric of interaction — into intonations, pauses, the speed of response, the emotional background, into the way another person is present beside you. And for this very reason it passes unnoticed in the moment, while accumulating over time.

If you begin to carefully review the day, it becomes clear that after some people you feel an inner clarity and composure, as if your attention becomes denser and more precise, while after others there arises a barely noticeable tension or fatigue, even if the conversation was short and outwardly unremarkable. The words may be equally simple, the topics mundane, the situations familiar, but the internal effect turns out to be different.

And gradually it becomes obvious that the matter was never limited to the number of tasks or the level of workload. Fatigue is formed not from events as such, but from the sequence of states you pass through during the day, and these states are largely shaped not by circumstances, but by the people who enter your field of attention.

At this moment, the very logic of explaining your own life changes. You begin to see that you never live a day in an isolated inner space, because your state is constantly in contact with the states of other people, and this exchange happens so naturally and continuously that it remains unnoticed until you begin to observe it consciously. And then the привычное explanation of fatigue ceases to be sufficient not because it is wrong, but because it is incomplete. Behind it, a more precise picture begins to emerge: the day is formed not only by actions and events, but by the influences you pass through, and it is they that imperceptibly shape the state you ultimately call yourself.

The first contact occurred almost imperceptibly, as usually happens with things that later turn out to be more important than all the obvious events of the day. The person near spoke about their difficulties, about injustice, about how much in life is arranged incorrectly and how hard it is to endure. You listened, nodded, maintained the conversation in the usual polite manner, seeing nothing special in it, because such conversations seem to be part of normal human communication.

But while you remained in this conversation, an almost imperceptible shift began to occur inside. Not sharp, not emotional, but slow and dense, as if attention were losing its lightness. Thoughts became less mobile, the mood gradually lost its transparency, and the body began to feel slightly more collected and tense, although outwardly nothing changed. And precisely because of this outward normality, you did not attach importance to it, because the conversation was «ordinary» and contained nothing that could cause alarm.

Then the day continued in its usual rhythm. Routine tasks, correspondence, matters that did not require special effort and did not fall outside the standard scenario. Formally, nothing difficult was happening, but everything was given чуть heavier than usual, as if a thin but noticeable layer of resistance had arisen between you and your usual clarity. Each action required a little more effort, each thought came together a little more slowly, and this barely noticeable deviation gradually became the background of the day.

And you, as happens almost always, found an explanation for this without dwelling on it longer than necessary. Fatigue, lack of sleep, the weather, accumulated tasks, ordinary human workload. These explanations sounded convincing enough not to reconsider the very structure of what was happening, and the day continued without inner analysis.

The second contact occurred during the day. A calm, businesslike conversation, without emotional coloring and without inner tension. Everything passed smoothly, correctly, neutrally, and after it your state became the same — even, stable, but not renewed. You did not feel any worsening, but you also did not return to the original clarity with which you had started the morning. You remained inside an already changed state, not noticing the very moment when it had become different.

By evening, a third conversation took place. With a person after whom you usually feel lighter, clearer, and freer. And indeed, after the interaction there appeared a sensation of air, inner expansion, thought became faster, attention more alive, and for a short time there arose a feeling of restored clarity. And it was precisely in this contrast that you, for the first time, truly felt how tired you were, because a point of comparison appeared.

If you look at the day as a whole, there was nothing in it that could explain such fatigue. No overloads, no crises, no exceptional events. An ordinary day, similar to thousands of others, in which nothing happens externally, but much changes internally. And that is why at the end of the day you again tell yourself the familiar phrase that you are simply tired, although in reality the fatigue here has a completely different nature.

You are tired not from tasks. You are tired from the sequence of states into which different people imperceptibly led you throughout the day. And these states are not felt as separate events, because you are accustomed to thinking of people as characters, roles, and personalities, whereas for your inner state they are a different phenomenon — sources of influence that change your background without prior notice.

After some people, inside becomes denser and heavier; after others, more even and calmer; after third ones, clarity and energy appear, and all of this happens regardless of the topics of conversation and the content of the words. What matters is not what was said, but the inner state in which you found yourself after the contact.

And it is precisely here that the main error of perception arises, which makes this process invisible. You explain fatigue by tasks, by the number of responsibilities, by external workload, but almost never consider the sequence of contacts itself as a factor shaping your state. You live the day no longer from yourself, but from the states that were transmitted to you during communication, and that is why you are sometimes surprised why you get tired without an obvious reason and why on other days you retain energy even under a high workload.

It becomes clear that the usual logic of evaluating the day by the amount accomplished does not reflect the real picture of what is happening. Your state is subject to a different system of measurement, in which the key role is played not by the volume of tasks, but by the quality of the contacts you pass through, because each of them leaves behind not words, but an inner trace.

And then it gradually becomes obvious what previously remained beyond attention: you never live a day in isolation from other people, because your state is continuously formed through interaction with them, and it is this imperceptible process that determines what you call your fatigue at the end of the day.

The effect that you have almost always felt but rarely could explain reveals itself in the most ordinary days, when nothing special happens and life flows in its usual rhythm. You may communicate with several people during one day and each time imperceptibly become slightly different. After one conversation, thoughts slow down and become more viscous; after another, you retain an even, functional state; and after a third, there suddenly appears a feeling of clarity, breadth, and inner movement, as if the space inside becomes larger. And precisely because this happens constantly and almost unnoticed, you do not attach importance to it.

We are accustomed to explaining our state by events, tasks, and workload, but if you look carefully, it becomes clear that the decisive role is played not by what you did, but by whom you interacted with. It is not tasks that form your inner state during the day, but the people through whom this state constantly changes.

In the evening, you almost always sum up the day incorrectly. You look at the number of completed tasks and from this draw a conclusion about your fatigue or productivity. But it would be far more accurate to look not at the list of tasks, but at the list of contacts, because it is this that reflects the real dynamics of your state. You get tired not from actions as such, but from how many times during the day your inner state was changed.

Sometimes this begins almost in the morning, when the day has not yet had time to unfold, and inside there already appears a light, hard-to-catch shadow, not connected with events or tasks. Formally, everything is fine, there are no reasons for tension, but the feeling is already shifted, as if the inner background has become slightly denser. A person continues to live on without fixing this moment, because they have no grounds to believe that something has happened.

During the day, he encounters ordinary situations, performs familiar actions, and outwardly everything looks normal. But by evening a state arises that seems disproportionate to the day lived, as if more fatigue has accumulated inside than can be explained by what actually happened. And then the familiar mechanism of explanation turns on: fatigue, overload, a long day, the need for rest. This explanation is convenient because it closes the question without requiring a deeper look.

But one simple and uncomfortable fact remains, which is difficult to ignore if you begin to observe more carefully: sometimes after an easy day a person feels heaviness, and sometimes after a busy and difficult day clarity and even energy remain inside. And this discrepancy indicates that the cause is not where it is usually sought.

Almost always we evaluate the day through actions, through the number of completed tasks, through visible activity. But the human state is structured differently. It is formed not so much by events as by the people who are embedded in those events. Each contact imperceptibly changes the inner state, even if outwardly it looks like an ordinary conversation or neutral interaction.

If you begin to track this, it becomes obvious that after some people tension or heaviness remains inside; after others a stable calm arises; and after third ones a feeling of clarity and inner expansion appears. At the same time, the content of the conversation may be completely the same — mundane, neutral, devoid of emotional accents. But the result inside turns out to be different, and it is precisely this difference that points to a hidden mechanism of influence.

Gradually it becomes clear that a person never remains unchanged during the day. They constantly shift between states, and each shift is connected with a contact they enter into. These changes are so familiar that they are not perceived as separate events, although it is precisely they that form the final feeling of the day.

You may live through a day in which there were only a few conversations, but it is they that will determine the inner outcome. One contact makes the state more tense, another evens it out, a third unexpectedly activates and restores clarity. And all of this adds up into a single trajectory, which a person then mistakenly explains as fatigue from tasks.

Here the key error of perception arises. A person looks at their day as a sequence of tasks and events, but in reality they live through not so much actions as a chain of inner changes. And these changes do not occur by themselves, but through other people who imperceptibly participate in shaping their state.

If one day you begin to notice this, it becomes clear that fatigue is rarely a direct consequence of work. It is almost always connected with the quantity and quality of contacts through which a person’s inner state has passed. Because it is precisely these contacts that form the space inside in which they then think, act, and make decisions. And then the very logic of perception gradually changes. The day ceases to be just a set of tasks and becomes a sequence of influences, in which each person leaves their trace, and it is from these traces that the state a person calls themselves at the end of the day is formed.It is precisely at this moment that a process begins which is almost never directly registered by consciousness, but constantly manifests itself in the feeling of one’s own state. Each contact with another person requires inner adjustment — an imperceptible adaptation, alignment, and attunement to the emotional and psychological background that was brought from outside. This is not perceived as effort because it happens automatically, but it is precisely here that a significant part of the inner resource is spent. That is why after some people a person feels collected and clear, as if there is more space and silence inside for their own thoughts, while after others fatigue arises, even if the conversation was short and outwardly unremarkable. The difference arises not because of the content of the words, but because of how much inner tension is required to maintain one’s own stability next to another state.

Gradually it becomes obvious that communication cannot be considered a neutral exchange of information. In reality, it is always an exchange of states, in which one person inevitably influences the inner organization of another. And this influence is rarely instantly noticeable, because it occurs not through obvious emotions or events, but through a subtle restructuring of attention, the tempo of thinking, and the level of inner tension.

If you look at the day as a whole, it becomes clear that such changes occur not once, but many times. Each contact leaves its own trace, and these traces do not disappear without a trace, but layer on top of one another, forming the person’s overall state by the evening. That is why the resulting fatigue is far from always connected with the number of completed tasks, because the decisive factor becomes not the volume of actions, but the number of inner shifts a person has gone through during the day.

And in this, a hidden system of exchange gradually becomes apparent, in which each person, without realizing it, continuously interacts not only with words, but with states. They give away part of their inner stability, take in someone else’s tension or clarity, adapt, align themselves, and then lose balance again in the next contact. And it is precisely this imperceptible sequence of exchanges that determines what their inner state becomes at the end of the day, even if outwardly they have done nothing that could be called a significant event.

Chapter 2. What a «State» Is and Why It Can Be Changed